COACH Paul Roos says the club is being cautious with dashing half-back Heritier Lumumba, who will miss his third consecutive match due to concussion.
Speaking on Roos’ Views, he said Melbourne was taking a careful approach with Lumumba and youngster Angus Brayshaw, who has been ruled out with concussion for the next four weeks.
“We’ve taken the pressure off him (Lumumba) a bit and told him to stay away from the footy club,” he said on Melbourne TV.
“Really, when I say it’s an unknown, the concussion has been around for many, many years, but there is so much more data on it now and the players are so much more aware of it.
“The doctors are so much more careful about it, because the dialogue with the players is much more open. Players from yesteryear wouldn’t have even told the doctors, so it’s probably the new frontier in how all footy clubs are dealing with it.
“I know there was an article in one of the papers and I think there are eight players out at the moment with concussion – of which we have two, [Brayshaw] and ‘H’. [Gold Coast captain] Gary Ablett may miss this week and we’ve seen a Brisbane player [Justin Clarke] retire, so it’s certainly an issue in footy that’s well and truly on the agenda.
“We’ve given ‘H’ the best treatment and hopefully he’s back sooner rather than later.”
Meanwhile, Roos reflected on his side’s 32-point loss to the Western Bulldogs last round, saying the Dogs were simply more advanced at the moment.
“At the end of the day, you want to win games of footy, but we were just beaten by a better team [that is ahead in its] development,” he said.
“I love the way they play … they’re very, very good at [contested possession] and they keep going back to the ball. We persevered and played some pretty good footy at times.
“At the end of the day, they were just too good for us.”
Looking ahead to this Sunday’s clash against the Brisbane Lions at the MCG, Roos said he was still wary of the Lions – even though they have won just one match this season – after they got within three points of the Sydney Swans just three rounds ago.
“Their best has been good this year, against the Swans up there [at the Gabba],” he said.
“We’re probably used to playing teams under pressure – Richmond, Collingwood and Gold Coast when they were coming off losses. So we’re like every team, we’ll prepare for their absolute best and that’s what we’ll do this week.
“We’ll have to play probably above the standard we played last week against the Bulldogs – even though we felt we played some pretty good footy. We want to keep improving on a weekly basis and that’s our main focus.”
