MIDFIELDER Daniel Cross says Melbourne’s Queen’s Birthday loss to Collingwood at the MCG on Monday was “definitely a missed opportunity”.

Cross said on the back of last round’s 20-point loss to Port Adelaide in Alice Springs, Melbourne had another opportunity to gain a win, before the opposition took control in the final quarter.

In the wash-up, the Magpies won by 33 points at the MCG.

“The last two weeks have been exactly the same. We felt we were right in it, even though we were down a bit more this week than last week. We still felt we had the run in the legs. But we just shot ourselves in the foot too much,” Cross told Dee TV.

“We turned the ball over. We were defensively really sound, but offensively, we couldn’t find our targets inside 50 and we turned the ball over too much.

“It’s really disappointing and the boys are quite frustrated and we’ve got some work to do.

“We still felt we were right in the game, although we hadn’t scored well, we felt … we were right in the hunt.”

Although Cross said the Demons controlled the ball well in patches, he added that his team couldn’t follow instructions well enough, which proved costly in the end.

“That’s the most disappointing thing – we were told to do something and we couldn’t correct it during the game. That’s what’s most frustrating and it’s a missed opportunity for us,” he said.

“Defensively, we were really good … that was where we let ourselves down last week and we’re correcting things. But it’s being consistent for 120 minutes and we’re just wavering at times, so we’ve got a lot of work to do.”