DANIEL Cross has praised his side’s effort, but says poor errors ultimately cost Melbourne from its first Queen’s Birthday win over Collingwood since 2007.

Cross said Melbourne’s 25-point loss to the Pies at the MCG on Monday was spirited, but some disappointing lapses undid the good work.

“Pretty much for the whole game or big chunks for the game, our effort was super – that’s what the coaches are asking of us.

But effort will only get you so far and I think we really shoot ourselves in the foot,” he told Dee TV.

“Full credit to them – they won the game, but 10 of their first 13 goals were from our turnovers, so if we clean up a lot of that stuff, the tables are turned a bit and we might be in the Queen’s Birthday match.

“It’s really disappointing to not come away with the win and we’ll go away and learn what we did wrong, but we’ve just got to keep doing the things that the coaches are telling us and keep drumming it into us.”

Cross said the challenge now was to back-up its effort against St Kilda and attempt to overcome the Saints for the first time since 2006.

“We’ve got to keep learning and we’re certainly getting better at a lot of the things that we’re doing, but we need to be unconditional with everything that we’re doing,” he said.

“We can’t keep going up and down like this with our effort levels – that’s one thing – that’s for sure.

“We’ve got a short break this week and we’ll come out really hard and firing against the Saints on Sunday.”