COACH Paul Roos says his team is expecting Essendon to be at its best when the two sides meet at the MCG on Saturday.
Although Melbourne is coming off a 54-point loss to the second-placed West Coast Eagles in Darwin, Essendon is entering round 15 having been on the end of a 110-point loss to St Kilda at Etihad Stadium.
Roos said the Demons were not taking the Dons lightly, after they were smashed by the Saints last weekend.
“No matter what team you play against, you prepare for their absolute best, whether a team’s won by 100 points the week before or lost [by 100 points],” he said on Roos’ Views.
“You look at a number of different games and you look at when they played well and you look at when they played poorly, and then you try and prepare for the best they can put out.
“So it doesn’t really change, based on what the opposition did the week before. You look at Essendon the previous week against Hawthorn and they were super competitive, so you look at a bit of stuff from that game.
“You look at last week’s game and you get a bit of an overall snapshot.”
Reflecting on the loss in the Territory, Roos said the match never reached any top levels.
“We probably didn’t get to any great heights and [West Coast coach] Simmo (Adam Simpson) could say the same thing, other than their last quarter – [when] I thought they really got on top of us,” he said.
“I don’t think either team played their best for the first three quarters and then they picked it up and we couldn’t go with them.
“We were in the game for three quarters, which was certainly much better than what we were last year against West Coast – they belted us both times we played them.
“There were some good signs, but it was disappointing the last quarter drop off.”
Meanwhile, Roos said he expects youngster Angus Brayshaw (neck) to play against the Dons.
He added that dasher Heritier Lumumba was set to return from a toe injury and midfielder Aaron vandenBerg (hamstring) was also ready to play, but he was unsure if he would resume in the AFL or VFL.
