COACH Paul Roos says further education for his players – and not worrying about the result – is the key message he’s sending his charges as they prepare to take on the West Coast Eagles at the MCG on Sunday.

Roos said teaching the players to play a game style that would stand the test at AFL level was purely his focus at the moment.   

“The results are important, but somewhat irrelevant,” he said on Dee TV’s Roos’ Views.

“We’ve got to make sure we continue to reteach the group, and reprogram the group, and keep reminding the group that we think they’re better than perhaps what they think they are.”

“They’re gradually understanding that and they’re gradually understanding what we want from them as a coaching group. It’s going to take time, but every game presents a real challenge for us to teach, and for the players to learn.”

Roos said his side planned and trained strongly in the lead-up to round one, but he felt the scoreboard pressure got to his team.

“We executed really, really well … [but] the thing that affects the players a lot is the scoreboard and they’ve got to really forget about the scoreboard,” he said.

“For our team in particular, you can sense the air going out of the tyres when we missed some goals and they kicked a couple in a row.

“That [was the] big unknown [going into round one] with the team and that’s the stuff we’re really working hard to give them – some belief – not to focus on the scoreboard, [We want them to] focus on the process that the good teams go through.”

Roos said it was “frustrating for the players” not to get a win in the season opener, when the match was there to be won.

“A lot of the things we did, we did well, and the things we practiced in the pre-season tended to work. [Kicking] 6.15 makes it really, really difficult and losing Fitzy and Tommy McDonald [through injury],” he said.

“But I was pleased with the players’ effort and work rate, and the fact that we continued to improve.

“It’s frustrating for everyone not winning and full credit to the Saints – they had a depleted midfield and we had depleted forward line and they got the job done.”

Roos said he was pleased with his midfield against St Kilda, adding that it had becomes Melbourne’s strong point, given the injury toll to its big men in attack. But he said his ball-winners needed to back it up this round against West Coast.

“We’re definitely a better midfield group [than last year],” he said.

“Probably what we thought was going to be our strength was our forward line and our weakness was going to be our midfield. But now our strength’s our midfield and our weakness is our forward line, so that’s how things change in footy.

“In terms of our midfield, we felt Bernie Vince had a terrific game, Crossy (Daniel Cross) did really well, [along with] Dom Tyson, Nathan Jones, Wattsy (Jack Watts) … [Jack] Trengove and Viv Michie, so there is some real depth going through the midfield now, which does make it a lot easier to compete.

“Certainly the Eagles’ strength is their hard-running midfielders and it’s going to be a good challenge for our boys [this Sunday].”