PAUL Roos says he has genuine empathy for all AFL coaches, given the scrutiny of the position.

Speaking at AAMI Park on Friday, Roos was asked if he felt for Brisbane Lions coach Justin Leppitsch – his opposite number, when the two sides meet at the MCG on Sunday – given the Lions have won just one match this year and lost their past two games by 77 points and 78 points respectively.

“There’s an understanding of what all coaches are going through at certain times,” he said.

“I understand how difficult the job is and I think Justin is doing a fantastic job.

“Their (the Lions) best footy has been very good and they’ve faced a tough draw, which has been somewhat unfair, but that’s the reality of the competition that we’re in.”

Roos said he had honed in on the Lions’ three-point loss to the fourth-placed Sydney Swans at the Gabba, just three rounds ago, in the lead-up to the round nine clash.

“I’m currently watching their (Brisbane’s) Sydney game, so you always pick the game that they (the opposition) played the best in, because as we’ve seen this year, every team is capable,” he said.

“All of the results have been pretty unpredictable so when every team brings their best football, they’re all really, really capable.

“We’ll scout most of their games with [game analyst and education coordinator] Craig Jennings. But I’ll tend to look at the best games and then you get a much better idea of what you need to stop … and how they play at their best, so that’s what I tend to do.”

With Melbourne favourites among the punters to win this round, Roos said he was not getting caught up in the hype.

“We don’t really focus on that as a footy club. There’s still a really strong aspect of every club having to bring their best footy,” he said.

“Teams like Hawthorn, maybe Geelong and Sydney and the top teams – they have a bit of a buffer where they can have a poor quarter or a bad half and still get going. We’re not in that bracket and we know that.

“We don’t really focus too much on the concept of [being] favourites or not-favourites. It’s more about the improvement and where we are as a club.

“Last week and the week before, I think we were one of the youngest teams in the competition, so that probably tends to get overlooked and we don’t mention it internally but you’ve got to be aware of it so that’s a key part of picking teams.”

Roos said the Melbourne coaching staff scrutinised the loss against the Bulldogs intently and took plenty from last round’s 32-point loss at the ‘G.

“I think after analysing the game, we’re all pretty positive as coaches,” he said.

“They [the Bulldogs] are a good side and we felt we played pretty well [against them] so at the end of the day, if you get beaten by a better side, you still learn from it.

“We want to get to where they’re at – they’re probably 12-18 months ahead of us, so our challenge this week is to improve on last week and that’s what we really want to do as a footy club. The Bulldogs were really quick to get from contest-to-contest, so we’ll take those learnings with our young guys and implement them this week.”

Meanwhile, Roos said key defender Tom McDonald was still a young defender learning his craft, but remained a crucial part of the team.

“Like all of our guys, Tom is still a pretty young guy,” he said.

“When he defends first and then runs off his opponent like he did last week, he’s a very good intercept mark and he’s very courageous above his head.

“We’ve implemented a lot of new stuff this year for our defenders so that’s probably been the biggest change for our game plan.

“Tom has played some terrific footy so far this year and I think for Tom, it’s just continuing to learn, continuing to get better and we believe he can take his footy to another level and last weekend was a really good example of it.”