COACH Paul Roos says this Sunday’s clash against the Brisbane Lions at the MCG will be a battle between two sides in similar form.

Roos said the Lions had produced some impressive form against Adelaide, Fremantle and the Sydney Swans in recent weeks and although they hadn’t won in that period, they had pressed some strong teams.

“They’re a little bit like us – they’ve played some good football in patches and have had a reasonable level of consistency over the last month,” he told Roos’ Views.

“They were good against Sydney, they were pretty good against Freo and they were good against Adelaide for three quarters, so their form’s been pretty good.

“We just need to play better than we did last week and that’s the goal for us – to address some of the areas we felt we needed to address and to continue to get better.”

Roos said this round’s clash with the Lions was particularly important as the Demons attempt to finish the latter part of the season off strongly.   

“It’s important that we play well, because last year we dropped off [in the second half of the season] and last weekend we played some really good football, but we didn’t win,” he said.

“We’ve got to start translating those good performances into wins.

“We know Brisbane has got some talent and they added some midfield depth with [Allen] Christensen and [Dayne] Beams, so it’s going to be a tough game, but we’ve got to play well and we’ve got to get four points.”

Roos said last Saturday’s loss to Essendon at the MCG was “a very frustrating game”.

“A lot of things went really well, but not in front of goal,” he said.

“It’s really hard to win games if you’re kicking 7.18 and four out of bounds on the full, but we’ve got to focus on other areas of our game and make sure we continue to improve that.

“We can’t control that as coaches, so we’ve got to make sure we control what we value and keep coaching it.”

Roos said there were some genuine positives to take out of the result – such as Melbourne’s best inside 50 count for the season – but inaccurate goalkicking proved to be a blight on its performance.

“Defensively, we created a lot of turnovers, which we haven’t been able to do as much this year, so defensively we were really good, but we just couldn’t put a score on the board,” he said.

“That’s where it’s hard to analyse the game, because sometimes you win those games and gloss over some of the areas you do poorly. Sometimes you lose those games and then you’re too negative.

“It is a real balance because it was a frustrating game and we [had] really high inside 50s and we won the contested ball, so the game’s coming together. But you’ve got to kick goals, when you get a chance.”