St Kilda coach Scott Watters says he would have to be crazy not to change his team for Thursday night’s historic AFL meeting with Sydney in Wellington.

Watters says with only a five-day break after Saturday’s 37-point loss to Essendon and a long flight before the Saints face the Swans in the AFL’s first overseas home-and-away game, the team needs fresh legs.

That’s even before he assesses how players have pulled up physically from the Bombers clash.

“Given the length of break, you’d be crazy to select an identical side,” Watters said on Saturday night.

“We probably looked at both these games as one campaign.

“There are some players that didn’t play tonight that certainly will come into consideration.

“We’ll have to assess how the list pulls up tonight and have a good look at them tomorrow morning.

“Obviously it’s the first time there’s going to be international travel so we need to bring in some fresh players.”

He said Arryn Siposs and Tom Lee, who were late withdrawals on Saturday, and young ruckman Tom Hickey would be in contention.

A squad of up to 26 players will travel to Wellington on Tuesday.

Watters said there were some big lessons the Saints needed to take from their loss to Essendon, notably in their contested ball work, shooting for goal and countering opposition marking forwards.

But he said time and travel constraints would make it difficult to spend much time fixing those issues on the training field before they face the Swans.

“That’s the challenge of the fixture,” he said.

“Some weeks you can train in more depth and there’s some weeks where it’s purely maintenance.

“We play Thursday so it’s not a huge amount of time.”