JACK Watts says “some stupid little errors” cost the Demons from winning their first round one fixture since 2005, when they went down to the Saints by 17 points at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night.

Watts, who was one of Melbourne’s best with 27 disposals in his new midfield role, said it was a frustrating start under new coach Paul Roos, given the team entered its season opener with renewed confidence.

“You can’t get it back now – that’s round one done,” he told Dee TV adamantly.

“We really built ourselves up for this game. We had our chances. It’s not as if we were completely outplayed out there and we let it slip, but as Roosy said, we’ve got to keep working from here and get back on the training track.

“To win the possession count [comfortably] … and a few [other] things showed improvement from last year – but we’ve [got to] keep working on those things and bring them into next week.”

After an exciting start by Melbourne – it kicked the first two goals of the match via Jimmy Toumpas and Dean Terlich – Watts said the team “went into our shells a little bit”.

“We missed a lot of goals in the first quarter as well. We didn’t kick accurately and if we could’ve put the pressure on – early on the scoreboard – it might’ve been a different story. We kept playing into their hands too much,” he said.

“All we want as a team is team success and that’s what Roosy is harping on about – playing your role and that’s all we have to do. No one has to play a 10 out of 10 game and kick five goals.

“At the moment, we don’t have enough blokes doing that and that’s the disappointing thing. We’ve got a lot of things to work on for next week and [we’ll] get back to basics and push hard for a better result next week.”

Watts said the Demons need to “hit the training track and stick together” in the lead-up to next Sunday’s clash against the West Coast Eagles at the MCG.

“We’ve done a lot of hard work in the pre-season and we can’t just let it all go to waste because of this result,” he said.

“We showed in patches that we can play really good footy.

“We need to pick the guys that are willing to play their role and move forward.”

But Watts’ performance was not lost on Roos, who lauded the almost 23-year-old – his birthday is on Wednesday – in his post-match media conference.

“I thought he was one of the ones, when he had the ball in hand – he was outstanding,” the coach said.

“His ability to step around [opponents] and find the target – he stood out from that point of view.”