COACH Paul Roos says he won’t ‘dare to dream’ about the ‘mathematical chance’ of Melbourne making this year’s finals.

Although the club is technically still in contention to play in September, the reality is that it’s a remote possibility. Roos said he wouldn’t ‘dare to dream’ about the slim chance.

“I’ve never been one to worry too much about that. Our job has always been to get to a point where we play good finals footy and we get to a point where we’re consistent, so we’ve still got work to do on our own game to be able to do that,” he told reporters at AAMI Park on Thrusday.

“We’ve won two in a row now – we beat Hawthorn last week, which was fantastic and [the Suns in round 19] – so for us, it’s more about where we’re heading in the off-season.

“If things fall your way, well that’s great, but to be honest we’ve got a lot of work to do on our game and we’ve got to make sure we continue to improve that.”

Looking ahead to this Saturday night’s clash against Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval, Roos said there was “a little bit of an unknown” in regards to how his side would back-up after its outstanding win over Hawthorn at the MCG last Saturday.

But he added that it was up to the leaders and the players to keep driving the standards at this time of the season.  

“I suspect the guys are pretty up-and-about around the footy club, so hopefully it does translate to another good performance,” he said.

“A lot of it you’re relying on your leaders at this time of the year, because the coaches have had a lot of meetings all year.

“We’ve spoken to them about different things, so [captain] Nathan [Jones] was pretty positive on Wednesday morning – we have Tuesdays off – when we came back [to the club] and he was just driving the group.

“That’s what you’re looking for – the players to really drive it, as we’re (the coaches) going to have minimal impact in the last three weeks to be perfectly frank – other than watching, backing off on training or training a little bit more, or [having] less meetings.”