Geelong have lost top spot on the AFL ladder and may have some other issues to deal with after a shock three-point loss to St Kilda at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night.

The Cats have surrendered first place to Sydney on percentage, the Swans with a game in hand during the second of the bye rounds.

The upset continued Geelong's unhealthy recent habit of winning games against likely finals rivals but dropping them to teams lower on the ladder.

St Kilda were 12th on the ladder before the start of round 14. And two other outsiders to beat Geelong this season, Collingwood and Carlton, were also both in 12th spot when they upset the Cats in rounds nine and 10.

Geelong are currently 6-1 in games against top eight rivals this season, but only 3-4 against those outside. They trailed the Saints by as much as 31 points during the first half, but hit the front during the third term, only to blow a nine-point lead they held with under six minutes remaining.

The Cats may have more immediate problems, too, after captain Joel Selwood and fellow midfield star Patrick Dangerfield were both involved in incidents which may attract AFL match review panel scrutiny.

Dangerfield had a third-quarter tangle with St Kilda's Jarryn Geary, who had tackled the Cat star and held on to his leg after Dangerfield attempted to move away. The Cat then made contact to Geary's head with his knee, though the amount of forced used was debatable.

Selwood was captured by cameras speaking animatedly to the umpires immediately after the final siren. Cats fans were incensed with just over a minute remaining when Tom Hawkins, leading for a mark, was caught in a tangle with St Kilda defender Dylan Roberton and tripped up, with no resultant free kick.

The Cats, however, were also their own worst enemy with some costly blunders, most obviously at the start of the final term when Daniel Menzel, after marking straight in front close to goal, handballed on to Steven Motlop, who then hit the post from the goal square.

Geelong coach Chris Scott was bitterly disappointed with the loss, but refused to blame his team's preparation. "No, no, we were ready," he said. "Our preparation was good, we didn't play very well early. Their pressure [St Kilda's] was really good."

Scott conceded the pattern of losing to lower teams was concerning, but added a qualifier. "It's better to beat the top teams than the ones that might not be there in September. I'm not saying I'm happy with it, but you take what you can sometimes."

Scott said the defeat underlined again just how tight was the 2016 season. "What it shows to me more than our mindset is that the comp's tight. It's dangerous to look at the ladder and assume things should be OK."

St Kilda coach Alan Richardson, meanwhile, praised the performance of on-baller Seb Ross, playing his 50th game, who had the unenviable task of matching up on Dangerfield, and ended up arguably the best player on the ground.

"We acknowledge Geelong is a really good footy team and some of the blokes that they're going to play on are really good players, but this is the way we want to play," Richardson said.

"Ross versus Dangerfield is a good example of that. Seb is building his career, he's a guy that works exceptionally hard at his footy, so he's starting to get rewarded. That was symbolic of the way we wanted to approach the game. The ultimate result has the potential to give us more belief."

Richardson said he was particularly pleased with the Saints' start to the game.

"The team showed that it turned up to win, which had been a bit of an issue for us against good teams in the last six weeks," he said. "To be smashed in the third quarter (the Saints allowed six goals in 12 minutes in the term), to respond a couple of times was really pleasing.

"That was the facet of the game that was most pleasing, that we didn't get knocked off our method."