Todd Goldstein will need to be at the top of his game on Friday, with St Kilda coach Alan Richardson backing Billy Longer to bounce back from last week.

The Saints named ruck back-up Rowan Marshall as an emergency last week, but the club is set to have an unchanged lineup for the Good Friday clash.

Richardson said Longer will be up for the challenge of taking on Goldstein, who had 35 hit-outs and 14 disposals in the Roos' loss to Gold Coast last week. 

"Goldstein's playing good footy again, there's no doubt about that. He's been able to find some of his form that made him an All-Australian ruck," he said. 

"Billy probably lowered his colours last week to Stefan Martin, who's also in good form, but we need Billy to bounce back strongly and we need to be really competitive in that part of the ground."

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The Saints will aim to open their season with consecutive wins for the first time since 2014, while the Roos will be looking to get their first win of the season, and their first on Good Friday.

St Kilda is set to stick with the same forward set-up, which included tall trio Josh Bruce, Tim Membrey and Paddy McCartin.  

"I thought the guys did a pretty good job (against Brisbane). Paddy had to play a pretty selfless role, it was a pretty high role, and 'Brucey' and Tim were able to get some pretty good look at it," Richardson said. 

"There's areas that didn't quite go as well as we'd like, but by and large, we were happy. Their function is to try and get a score for us and put defensive pressure on the opposition's rebound. Our outside game was pretty good, and they were a big part of that."

It will be the first time for the Saints on Good Friday, having replaced the Western Bulldogs as North’s opponent for the second year of the marquee clash, and Richardson said the occasion would be a good test for the club. 

"We'll just focus on the opposition and focus on what works for us. We got a lot out of last week's game. There were some things that worked really well for us, and some things like clearances that didn't go our way," he said. 

"The Kangaroos are a really good clearance team, so we'll have to be at our best to give ourselves an opportunity to win. I think we'll handle it really well."