AHEAD of Sunday’s match against St Kilda, Melbourne coach Paul Roos says his side needs to start converting consistent strong form into wins.

Despite already bettering its 2014 record, Melbourne is yet to register back-to-back wins this year and Roos said it was an important milestone for his young team.

“I think [winning two in a row is] pretty important, we haven’t been able to do it, certainly in my time,” he said on Friday.

“I think we’ve had a good four or five week patch – our last quarter against West Coast we struggled – we’ve probably strung our best five weeks of footy together but we’ve only got two wins out of that five [and] we haven’t been able to do it back to back.”

While Melbourne has competed well in recent weeks, Roos said regularly securing the four points was the key to improving external perceptions of the club’s form.

“From a consistency point of view [the performance is] there, certainly a lot better than any other time in my time here,” he said.

“But the best way to show people you’re consistent is by winning games consistently.

“We’re in them, we’re competing, we’re starting to win – we’ve won two out of five... but we want to win as many games as we possibly can.”

Roos said despite a scrappy second half against Brisbane in round 16, there were some pleasing signs to come out of the gritty win.

While only kicking eight goals themselves, the Demons were able to restrict the Lions to one goal in the first half and only four for the match.

“We felt our first half, for us to be seven goals to one against any team, with where we’ve come from as a footy club is an exceptional first half [and] probably our best half of footy,” Roos said.

“I think Melbourne supporters would be reasonably pleased about winning, given where we’ve been as a footy club.

“Do we want to play better in the second half? Yeah, we do and we need to improve to beat the better teams and to keep getting better.”

When focusing on improvement, Roos emphasised the importance of maintaining a strong VFL side in creating competition for spots.

After struggling in 2014, Casey has established itself as a finals contender and has won its past three games.

“I mentioned to the whole team that it’s really important for our VFL team, Casey, to do really well, which they are,” Roos said.

“We really need to pride ourselves on their performance and if they’re playing well as they are, then players [who aren’t being selected at AFL level] are going to get frustrated.

“But we can recognise improvement when they’re playing well and they just have to trust us as a coaching group that we are seeing what they’re doing and we’re recognising it.

“It might not mean they’re getting into the team but the better they go, the better we are as a footy club and the more likely they are to get into the team eventually.

“It’s a good position and it’s a unique position as a club for us to be in but we’ll train today and see what happens.”