COACH Paul Roos has urged the Melbourne faithful – and the footy public at large – to get behind a big Queen’s Birthday clash against Collingwood at the MCG, which coincides with ‘Big Freeze 2’.
Roos said Monday promised to be a great footy day and one that the club was eagerly awaiting.
“I think the players are always excited about playing, but certainly coming to this footy club – it’s a big game,” he said.
“For us, Collingwood is more used to playing in those bigger games, so we hope to get as many fans there as we possibly can, because it adds to the atmosphere, when there is more support.
“With Neale’s (Daniher) support as well, it’s a really important show of support for him and the cause. My message [to the fans] would be to get there, because it should be a good game and hopefully it’ll be a massive, big crowd and it becomes a really good occasion.”
Roos said it was a great opportunity to see his players perform on the big stage.
“It’s all part of the learning curve – the bigger the crowd, the better,” he said.
“The Richmond ANZAC Day eve [game] – you can see when the crowd gets involved, the players feed off it, but they also learn from it. You feed off it positively and if you lose, how do we cope with it better? We need to play in front of big crowds and play important games.
“In terms of performance, we understand we’ve got to bring a high level of performance to beat most teams still, because we don’t have a huge margin for error and that’s what we’re looking to do on Monday.”
With Melbourne set to play Collingwood for the second time in a home and away match this season Roos said there was now “a bank of evidence about how teams want to play”.
“You look at them (Collingwood) again, both positively and negative, when they’ve played their good games and when they’ve played not as well – and certainly when you’ve actually played against them,” he said.
“My experience tells me that every game is different, other than the trends in the game. We hope to bring energy and we’ll have a different team in and they will as well.
“You take everything into consideration, but you understand that every game is new and unique and we’ve got to bring 100 per cent effort.”
Meanwhile, Roos said tall forward Jack Watts would not be used as a back-up ruckman long-term.
“It’s not sustainable to have that type of ruckman and that’s why we’ve got Dawesy (Chris Dawes) to come in,” he said.
“Wattsy’s had a terrific season and we actually think he does really well in the ruck, but you don’t want to see him get too beaten up in that area.
“He’s a lighter frame, certainly with the ruckmen he goes up against. Having Dawesy in there gives us another option and that might happen this Monday, but it’s certainly something we can go to.”
