COACH Paul Roos says “it was hard to find a bad player” in Melbourne’s 46-point win over Collingwood at the MCG on Queen’s Birthday.
Speaking post-match after his side’s sixth win for the season, Roos said Monday’s victory was a “really good effort from all our players”.
“The level we're at now translates into a good performance, as it did,” he said.
“I thought every player that played for us today represented really strongly and delivered a good outcome.”
Roos said it was an important win on the big stage and one that his side approached with aplomb.
“We think we’re growing as a footy club and we think we’re getting better, but you have to win some games along the way,” he said.
“When you’ve been through the patch we’ve been through over last six to seven years, you have to break some hoodoos in order to get better.
“It’s a big day for us, for 60,000 to turn up and home game for us … so we wanted a response today and it was an important day for us.”
Although Melbourne is in 10th position and just one match out of the eight, Roos said it was not looking too far ahead or the prospect of finals.
“Not at all – things can change really quickly. You lose today and you’re five [wins] and seven [losses] and you start to think how much have you improved,” he said.
“Today’s just a stepping stone along the way to where we want to get to. When we get there, that will be determined by how well we play and how other teams play.
“From our point of view it’s on to Sydney and we’re going to have play really well up there against a very good team.”
With the likes of Max Gawn, Nathan Jones, Dom Tyson, Bernie Vince and Jack Viney among Melbourne’s best, Roos said the role of Tomas Bugg was “really important” on Magpie star Steele Sidebottom.
“Sidebottom is a terrific player and a real catalyst for them,” he said.
“He plays that wing role really well … he’s very important and he’s able to push forward and works really hard,” he said.
“Buggy’s one of our fittest players and came off with cramp. For Buggy to do a really good role – Sidebottom had 17 disposals and a goal – but it was a pretty important role for us.”
