Saints coach leaps to Montagna's defence

St Kilda coach Alan Richardson has lashed out at Hawthorn great Dermott Brereton over his disrespectful treatment of Saints veteran Leigh Montagna.

Brereton dissected the underperforming team, currently 12th with a 5-6 record, and Montagna's place in it in a News Corp column on Friday.

He criticised Montagna's kicking coming out of defence and questioned his future beyond this season, but raised the ire of Richardson when he wrote:

"There's a joke around the league that the hardest contested ball Montagna will fight for is against a teammate to take the kick-in after a behind."

Montagna revealed he had called Brereton himself to discuss what he felt was a cheap shot and his coach backed him up on Monday night.

"I thought it was incredibly disrespectful," Richardson said on Fox Footy's AFL 360.

"Joey's been such an outstanding performer for a very long time ... when that (criticism) comes from someone like Dermott ... I thought it was really poor.

"And I think Joey's been on record to say that he's ok with people having a go at his footy and challenging where he's at from a footy perspective.

"Joey's been a pretty strong performer for us this year ... he's had a bad game.

"The club had a bad game, you could pick out many players who didn't perform well but I thought it was pretty poor form by Dermott."

Montagna, 33, is expected to meet with the club to discuss his future before the end of the month.