A PERPLEXED and disappointed Dean Bailey says his team's performance against West Coast was listless, and the Melbourne coach has flagged a hard week on the track to get his playing group ready for Adelaide next Sunday.

Melbourne is yet to really impress this season, despite a 90-point thumping of Gold Coast, and a strong showing at Patersons Stadium would have been the perfect way to return from last week's bye.

But the Demons emerged flat and West Coast blew them away with a five-goal-to-nil opening quarter. Bailey said the most disappointing aspect of the performance was the lack of intensity.

"It is a poor performance. We need to get back on the training track and, not only get confidence there, but lift our intensity," Bailey said.

"We need to make sure that the players we roll out next week are clear in their objectives about the tackling, chasing and pressure that they need to do. If we don’t do it on the ground, then we have to at training."

With unseen intensity, poor ball use and a lack of ability to win contested possessions, Bailey rued the start his team made, but he was uncertain as to why it occurred.

"Our preparation was good in the sense of how we trained. We got two main training sessions on Friday and Monday, and had a session here so the preparation was good," he said.

"When you travel interstate you obviously want to get off to a good start, you want to win a couple of the really key indicators in the game like contested possessions and you want to get your accuracy right and your tackling right.

"Particularly when you travel interstate those areas are really important and in the first quarter that's what let us down. We turned the ball over too much... and turned it over trying to go inside-50 too often as well."