COACH Paul Roos says this Sunday’s clash against the Western Bulldogs at the MCG will be a genuine chance to see how far his side has progressed this year.

Roos said his players were really keen to pit themselves against the fourth-placed Bulldogs.

“They’re a good, young team. They play a style of footy we really respect and they’re hard around the ball and they’ve got a good midfield group,” he told Melbourne TV. 

“Their defence rebounds really well and they generally go into a pretty exciting forward line.

“That’s why they’re five [wins] and two [losses] and that’s why they played in the finals last year. It’s a great opportunity for us to gauge how far we have come.”

Roos said the influence of manager of development Brendan McCartney at the Bulldogs and now Melbourne was evident.

“They (the Bulldogs) are probably, in year terms, a year-and-a-half to two years ahead of us, given Macca was there for three and [Western Bulldogs coach] Luke [Beveridge] has been there for two years,” he said.

“We’ve been involved in this process [for two seasons and seven rounds] and we’re aware of what Macca did, because he’s here with us now. I’ve watched [the Bulldogs] evolve and we played a lot of teams after the Bulldogs, so I remember watching a lot of the Bulldogs under Macca.

“What he tried to create there, and the flow-on effect now with Luke coming in and really adding the offensive stuff, is similar to what we’re trying to do here. We’ll find out a lot about our team and how much we’ve improved.”

Roos said the Bulldogs had plenty of young talent, but it was their ability to play a system-like team that was most impressive.

“[Marcus] Bontempelli, Libba (Tom Liberatore), [Mitch] Wallis, [Jake] Stringer and [Jack] McRae – they get all of the publicity,” he said.

“But if you look at guys like Caleb Daniel, who has come into the team and played a really significant role for them and [Koby] Stevens, who has been good coming across from another footy club – they’ve become a system-based team.

“When you become a system-based team and less reliant on personnel – and we all know that [Jason] Johannisen and [Robert] Murphy are out of the team – but they’re a real system-based team. They’re got some really good depth and some really good depth of young talent – Bailey Dale is another young kid that not many people know much about.

“What I like about them is that it’s one player in and one player out. They don’t miss a beat, so that’s what we’re trying to create as a footy team, which at the weekend was important, because I think we were the youngest [AFL] team on the weekend. We were able to bring four players in that played their roles really well and we didn’t seem to miss a beat and that’s everyone’s challenge. The Bulldogs have been doing that really, really well.”

Roos said taking on the Bulldogs at the MCG, after playing at Etihad Stadium and Metricon Stadium in the past two rounds, was a great opportunity to play a fierce contest in front of a strong crowd.

“The Bulldogs will be looking forward to playing [at the MCG] as Luke has said, because that’s where the finals are played. They’re a very good team, regardless of where they play,” he said.

“They’ve played at Etihad [Stadium] a lot, so we’re looking forward to playing on any ground, but certainly the MCG for us is our home ground.

“We didn’t play so well at Etihad last time, but regardless, every side tries to set up the team to play well at every venue. Luke’s doing that with his team and they’ve played well at the MCG, so again it’s going to be a really good test.

“It’s exciting to be playing them on the MCG in front of hopefully a big crowd.”

Looking back on last round’s 73-point win over the Gold Coast Suns, Roos said it was “a great win” for the club. 

“It was a great win. At half-time, we were just in front, but we felt we were playing good footy,” he said.

“We had a lot of inside 50s and they were energised a bit by their outside stuff, which was good and they scored from a couple of our turnovers.”

“The message to the players was that we were playing the right way and just keep doing it and then the second half opened up.”