Melbourne coach Paul Roos shocked by basic skill errors against West Coast and forecasts personnel changes

MELBOURNE coach Paul Roos admitted he was shocked by basic errors in an embarrassing belting at the MCG.

NEW Melbourne coach Paul Roos admitted he was shocked by some of the basic errors in an embarrassing belting at the MCG yesterday.

The mood of Roos seemed to shift from re-educate to recrimination as he flagged changes after the 93-points loss to West Coast.

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“Some of the stuff today, they were missing chest marks. Certainly I haven’t seen that before,’’ Roos said.

“It’s an eye-opener for me as a new coach of the footy club. Some of the errors were just incredible.

“There’s a big gap (in the AFL competition), you can’t run away from that, you can’t hide. But my job now is re-educate or educate and at some point you’ve got to draw a line in the sand and say these are the guys we’re going to pick.

Paul Roos addresses the Demons at three quarter time. Picture Wayne Ludbey.

“If you want to do them in the seconds and develop, then you’ll get picked again. But if you don’t do them, you just don’t play because you can’t become a good team unless you have those real non-negotiables.

“I’ve got to leave this club in a much better position than when I arrived. That’s my goal and that hasn’t changed.

“They (players) have been belted a lot over the last couple of years, but it’s more this is what I want, if you can’t deliver, then someone else (gets the chance). That’s probably where we’re going to be over the next two, three, four, five weeks. I’ll just make changes and statements, that’s what footy is.’’

A dejected group of Demons leave the field. Picture Wayne Ludbey.

Roos said a weekly turnover of personnel was inevitable for the team to improve to at least be competitive.

“I’m certainly putting together my own dossier. It’s early in my tenure here, but certainly you’re building up a profile on each of the players, you’re seeing under the heat and seeing what they can and can’t do,’’ the Demons coach said.

“There are some non-negotiables in footy, that’s just the reality of what the game is. If you can’t do them, you can’t play.

“You could see the hesitation even to go out to space, there was just no-one to kick it to.

A frustrated Paul Roos in the last quarter.

Certainly, that’s having a big bearing, your ability to score, but that doesn’t have that big an impact to do the basic things.

“We’ve got to make sure we’re clear on what we stand for as a footy club and what we deem as acceptable and unacceptable.

“Stuff about going forward, you can make excuses for that. I don’t think players mean to chip it from side to side all day. So they’re the things you separate, but from a footy club point of view, my role is clear over the next couple of years is to make it a footy club that people can come and watch and make sure the team is competitive on a weekly basis.

“I don’t want to call it experimenting, but we’ve got to do some different things to find out about the players and what they can and can’t do.

“There are real habits in the club that are really hard to break. But that’s my job as a coach, to read the sights, to read players and what motivates them. But you can’t lose sight of the fact that you have to be competitive.’’