PAUL Roos says Melbourne is likely to stick with the same winning team, which defeated Collingwood at the MCG last Saturday, for this Sunday’s clash against North Melbourne at the ‘G.

Speaking on Roos’ Views, the Melbourne coach said going in unchanged was “his initial thought” after the club’s VFL affiliate Casey lost to Werribee at Casey Fields last Sunday. 

“Given the VFL was disappointing and had a loss [we’ll probably stick with the same 22 this round],” he said.

“But we’ll certainly talk to the coaches and have a look at the games and see who they thought played well for Casey and see who might warrant some selection and then have a look at the team.

“But it’s hard to make changes, when the team has a really good win like that – and it was a good team effort.”

With the likes of ruckman Mark Jamar, ball-winner Matt Jones and tough-nut Aidan Riley pushing for selection, Roos said it was important to keep encouraging players on the cusp of the 22.

“We’re talking to a lot of those guys and reinforcing their behaviours and making sure they’re valued around the club, because if you’re not making many changes, it is hard [for them],” he said.

“Russian (Jamar) is in a really tough position. I spoke to him last week for 10 minutes about how close he was to [playing] against the two ruckmen from Collingwood, but he understands why at the moment he’s not getting game.

“As long as they understand and keep working hard – that’s all we can ask.”

Although Melbourne hasn’t beaten North Melbourne since round 20, 2006 at the MCG, Roos said the Demons were chipping away at ending some poor streaks, having overcome the Cats for the first time since 2006 and the Magpies since 2007.

“Someone will come up with a stat against North this week I suspect and then against the Bulldogs at Etihad [Stadium in round 20]. But the better we get the more hoodoos we’re going to break and streaks,” he said.

“But I think it identifies what we know – we’re a different team and we’re improving and we’ve still got a long way to go, but we’re more capable of winning games of football now.”

With North Melbourne having won its past four matches and again pushing for a top eight spot – after a top four finish last year – Roos said it was another challenge for his team this weekend.

“They’ve been a good team. Last year, they made the prelim final and they’ve started to crank themselves up over the last month,” he said.

“But we prepare for the best and Collingwood was eight [wins] and three [losses] not that long ago and had some terrific games and probably should’ve beaten Freo and should’ve beaten Hawthorn. To beat them (Collingwood) was a really good effort.

“We’ll prepare for North’s best – we had two games against them last year and the first one was really disappointing and the second one we played some really good football, but we still got beaten by four or five goals. We need to play better and that’s our goal this week.”

Roos said the 37-point win over the Pies meant that the Demons had a 50 per cent winning record since its outstanding round 12 win over Geelong at the Cattery. 

“It’s been good for the club. If you reflect on the last five or six weeks, we’ve felt we’ve played some pretty consistent footy in parts and at least we got some really good reward on the weekend,” he said.

“The last six weeks have been three [wins] and three [losses], so you’re starting to get a little bit of reward for effort.

“Consistency is still an issue, as we saw with the St Kilda game [in round 17], but it was a really good win [against Collingwood] to kick 13 goals and to keep a team to seven. It was a really, really good balance of offense and defence.”

Roos said he remained adamant the club was heading in the right direction, but even “coaches need wins”.

“We can talk to the cows come home amongst each other about how some stats are changing, how we’re improving and [how] different players have improved, but everyone needs wins – there’s no doubt about that,” he said.

“To get from four [wins] to six now – four last year and six this year – clearly shows we’ve improved and hopefully we can get some more wins before the end of the season.”

Although Melbourne has already achieved its best season since 2011, the team has a genuine opportunity to notch up eight or nine wins. If it wins eight, it will equal 2010-11 or if can produce nine victories, it will be its best season since its most recent finals appearance in 2006 – a fine effort, given how difficult it’s been for the club since 2007.  

“Hopefully they’re (the players) getting belief along the way – I don’t think there is any doubt about that,” he said.

“They’re starting to believe in their teammates and the coaches, but we’ve seen over the past six weeks that we’ve probably had our best six-week patch, but we’ve still had some down periods.

“So it’s really minimising those down periods and maximising the up periods, which have been really, really good and that’s probably the goal for the next five games – to play our best football for longer and our worst football, well, we hope we don’t see that too often.”