The Saints coach has instead urged his club to have patience in building a side via the draft and targeted trading.

Saints president Peter Summers has set the target to win a premiership by 2020 and be competitive by 2018 and while Richardson said he agreed with the targets, he wouldn't put a "ceiling" on when the club would again be among the best sides.

The Saints sit at the bottom of the ladder this season and lost to North Melbourne by 59 points on Saturday.

Speaking on Channel Nine's The Sunday Footy Show, Richardson said the club was focused on keeping to a "model" of developing its list with good draft choices and smart trading.

He pointed to the club’s decisions last off-season to let stars like Nick Dal Santo leave and focus on draft picks like Luke Dunstan and Jack Billings.

Richardson also said trade targets Luke Delaney, Shane Savage and Josh Bruce had all shown they were worth acquiring and the club would look for similar recruits this off season.

"Philosophically we won't look at free agency for a couple of years," Richardson said.

"We don't think it's a direction we want to take; we think the model we have decided to go down is the right way.

"We plan to get in young players, to be patient and to make sure we get games into these young boys.

"If something was incredibly attractive and sat in the demographic you are after in terms of an age perspective and position then we would look at it."

Richardson was also grilled about whether the Saints would fall further down the ladder in the coming years when veteran stars like Nick Riewoldt, Lenny Hayes and Leigh Montagna retired.

"We have some experience to go out of our group there is no doubt about that, but the reality is those guys play a really significant role in all footy clubs," Richardson said.

"The [Western] Bulldogs played well yesterday and I would say half a dozen of their top players outside of [Jackson] Macrae would have been players like Will Minson, Matthew Boyd and Bob Murphy.

"Those sort of players play a really important role, not only when you are in a position to win one but when you are in the position we are in of rebuilding."

Richardson also said not all his veterans would be gone in two years with some capable of playing on longer.

"Some of those guys have three or four years left and some of those guys might be giving it away this year," Richardson said.

"Then younger blokes will get that opportunity, players like David Armitage will become that main man in the side and we saw what he did on Saturday even though Lenny [Hayes] was alongside him."

The Saints are struggling with injuries at present with Richardson adding that impressive midfielder Jack Steven wouldn't be back any time soon after struggling with a thigh injury.

"You would think he would be out for a fairly long period," Richardson said.

The first-year Saints coach also said he ranked Armitage and Jarryn Geary as future leaders of the club while he also answered questions about how much influence he was given over the playing list.

"I have a fairly significant say in how the game should be played and what players we need in our footy club – do we need more speed or more grunt or do we need forwards?" Richardson said.

"I have a really significant say."

Richardson said he saw a bright future for the club despite its struggles this season.

"As long as we are prepared to stick fat as a footy club and stay the course and go to the draft and keep bringing in quality players then I have no doubt we can be in those kind of positions by that stage [2018]," Richardson said.