Paul Roos says Melbourne have plenty of work to do ahead of Fremantle clash in Darwin

MELBOURNE coach Paul Roos concedes the Demons still had work to do to be considered an improving side ahead of the clash with Fremantle.

Paul Roos watches Angus Brayshaw and Tom McDonald.

MELBOURNE coach Paul Roos conceded the Demons still had work to do to be considered an improving side.

Roos said playing Fremantle on Saturday night in hot Darwin conditions was another opportunity to put together a solid four quarters.

The Demons matched motors with Adelaide last week at the MCG but fell away in the last term to lose by 22 points.

“We’re creeping up to that level but we’ve even seen this year against those top teams we need to play better for longer and that’s going to be the focus going into the game for us,” Roos said.

“We felt (against) Adelaide we did really well in patches but their ability to do it for longer was the four-goal difference in the end.”

The Demons have lost their past seven games against Fremantle, dating back to 2011.

Paul Roos watches Angus Brayshaw and Tom McDonald.

“There’s a lot of those hoodoos, I guess, that we’ve had to sort of break over the last three years (and Fremantle’s) been a really good team too,” he said.

“I think we’ve sort of broken them (hoodoos) in the sense the players seem more confident when we’re playing now.

“We don’t really reflect on it but part of your evolution as a young footy team is to win in different venues, to win against teams in different rungs of the ladder, so I think we’ve made some really significant advancements this year but what we’ve seen is just that top level is still a little bit away.”

“We’ll treat Freo as the team they’ve been the last four years so we know we need to play extremely well to beat them.”

Meanwhile, young Demon Josh Wagner is on track to return from a knee injury next week.

Christian Salem at Melbourne training.

“Part of the bye weekend is always getting your players right, sometimes it’s a week, sometimes it’s two weeks,” Roos said.

“What you don’t want to do is take half advantage of the bye, get them back and they’re still not fit.

“We think he’ll play next week, this week is probably just a touch off them.

“We want him to be able to play and train and not just play, we could play him this week but we saw even before the bye he was starting to grind down a little bit, had a really good three quarters against the Swans and his last quarter he struggled so we want him to get back to play four quarters of footy.”

Demons veteran Heritier Lumumba’s immediate playing future remains in doubt after he suffered another head knock in his VFL comeback match last weekend.

Originally published as Paul Roos says Melbourne have plenty of work to do ahead of Fremantle clash in Darwin