COACH Dean Bailey says this Sunday’s clash against Adelaide Crows at the MCG in not the biggest test for the club in terms of its character.
Bailey was adamant that his team’s character was challenged every week and it would be incorrect to place this round’s clash ahead of any other.
“I think every week we get tested on character. To put one game more than ahead of any other is wrong,” he said from Casey Fields on Friday.
“Our attitude and approach - it has to be hungrier than the week before. We set a poor standard last week and it’s got to be better.
“We expect the character to come through every week and it needs to come through on Sunday.”
On the back of last round’s poor performance - when Melbourne lost by 54 points to West Coast Eagles at Patersons Stadium - Bailey expected the team to come under scrutiny.
“Every week you get challenged and we didn’t perform well last week and we expect the scrutiny to come,” he said.
“Our performance on Sunday will be scrutinised again and we just expect a better effort over 120 minutes and that’s what we’ve been after since the start of the year.
“We haven’t been able to quite put four quarters together and it’s going to be our aim again on Sunday.”
When asked about his own position and whether he felt pressure, Bailey said it “comes with the job”.
“All of the coaches are getting examined every week. Every day they get examined on what they’re doing and what they’re saying,” he said.
“You can only control what you can control and that is to get to training, continue to coach the players and make sure that your preparation coming into every game is the best it can be.
“This week we’ve made a couple of changes in the sense of our training program. We altered a few things, so we could get an extra football session in.
“We’ve got flexibility in our program to do it and we’ll continue to try and prepare them as well as we can.”
When pressed if he felt criticism of Melbourne was justified - although the Demons are eighth on the ladder and have a two and a half wins from five matches - Bailey said he could understand why it was offered.
“You’re only ever judged on your previous performance and our last game against West Coast was really poor - it was really poor in whatever angle you want to look at,” he said.
“When you perform poorly, you expect the scrutiny to come and that is what’s been done - because of the way we performed. That’s the nature that we’re in.”
With Melbourne including seven players in its 25-man squad, Bailey said changes were due to structure and effort.
“We’ve got a few guys whose performances at VFL level over the last four or five weeks have been pretty good,” he said.
“So they get their chance to perform and I’m sure they will. They’ll bring a vibrancy and urgency to the game on Sunday, which is terrific.”