COACH Paul Roos says Melbourne’s next challenge is to move from being a competitive side to a winning team.

“That’s the shift that we’ve now got to make as a footy club,” he said on AFL 360 on Monday night.

“I think we’re competitive and we’ve had a really good month of competitive footy, but now … we’ve got to turn those into wins.

“You have to do that at some point and we will – I know we will. I can’t give the fans a date when that will happen, but I know the way the players have been coached with Macca (Brendan McCartney), the development boys and Goody (Simon Goodwin) and all of the guys [that it will turnaround].

“I know they’re coached really, really well and that’s all I can say to the fans – it will happen. Unfortunately, I’d like it to happen sooner, rather than later.”

Roos conceded the loss to Essendon at the MCG last Saturday was most “frustrating”.

“We did a lot of things right, [for example] we had 58 inside 50s,” he said.

“The direction of the club is in really good shape and that’s why I was so keen to do the succession [plan], because I didn’t have the energy [to coach] for three, four or five years.

“I felt like I could come in and help the situation, like I feel I’ve done, but we needed to get some clarity for five years. That was really important.”

Roos acknowledged he had taken on the frustrations of the past and said he had to be careful when talking about the club’s recent history.

“We had a really good meeting today (Monday), where I said ‘how do we go about the weekend, because I don’t want to carry over that [past] five or six years?’  But it is hard not to,” he said.

“I’m coaching them and I wasn’t there in the past and it’s hard not to [bring up the past]. That’s the thing that I’ve really got to try and [not do], which is as frustrating as it is.

“I could see the fans – and some of the emails I get from the weekend’s game – and I understand where we’re at. I know where we’re at, but it is hard not to carry that baggage. But I’ve got to say that this is us and this is now and this is what we’ve done in 18 months and this is where we’re going.”

Roos said the challenge now was to continue to work out how to solve the problems as quickly as possible.

“We sit and analyse as a coaching group, so we’ve got to find out ‘how do we fix this team [and make it] better and quicker’, so the conversations we have are probably the ones that we have around the water cooler.”

Meanwhile, Roos said it was hard to imagine what Adelaide was going through at the moment, following the tragic death of Phil Walsh.

“We all feel for the footy club – there’s no question about that,” he said.

“This is raw and this is real and not fabricated and this is love for a coach.

“How hard it is for them to play is beyond comprehension at the moment.”