COACH Paul Roos has revealed that the players drove the review of the St Kilda loss last round to help further their education.
Roos said the disappointing 37-point loss at the MCG last Sunday was in turn an opportunity for the players to drive the meeting in the lead-up to Saturday’s clash against Collingwood at the ‘G.
“We gave them a quarter each and the leaders took a quarter each. They went through it and they came back with some clips and showed the rest of the group,” he said on Roos’ Views.
“The good thing was that they saw exactly the same as what the coaches saw and that’s all part of the collective understanding of coaches and players working together.
“It was good that they were able to identify the things that we feel are important and show the rest of their teammates.”
Roos said there was no doubt “the players understand that they can play” at the highest level, but they needed to keep building strong “habits”.
“They tend to not lose confidence after a loss, and they tend to not gain that much confidence after a win, so that’s probably the hardest thing and the reason why we’re so up and down,” he said.
“They’re still trying to form really good habits and they’re certainly getting closer to what we want, but there is a lot of improvement [still left in the players].”
Roos acknowledged that the loss against the Saints “was another frustrating game”.
“To St Kilda’s credit, they outworked us and put more pressure on us and full deserved the result,” he said.
“The frustrating thing from a fans’ point of view was more our ball use.
“They can see the effort, but just those skill errors – they’re certainly hard to coach and I think the players understand that.”