SECOND-game forward Jeremy Howe says Melbourne is painfully aware of its inability to play consistent football, but is just not sure how to fix the problem.

The Demons lost to Collingwood by 88 points on Monday after an encouraging win over Essendon the week before.

Howe said it was too familiar a story, but that the team was working towards addressing the issue.

"We are sick of being on this roller-coaster, up one week and down the next. We keep harping on it that we need to play consistent footy, but we are just not at the moment," Howe said.

"We keep going back and trying to see what we're doing wrong, but it is almost like we keep saying, we need to be beaten quite convincingly the week before to get ourselves up and get a win the next week."

Howe said he was aware of the significance of the Queen's Birthday clash but did his best to isolate himself from the hype that came with the event.

"You try and block it out as much as you can. It is a big day and Collingwood have a fair bit of support. You try and block it out as much as you can but it's always playing in your head," he said.

"We had a big build-up to this game. It is the biggest game for the club, so everyone was getting themselves up as much as they can. It was pretty much like a final for us. We tried to prepare the same, but it's always in the back of your head that Queen's Birthday is such a big day."

Howe was one of few Melbourne players to hold his head high on Monday.

He had 14 possessions and kicked a goal despite the rare opportunities he had up forward. The Demons were smashed 74-34 in inside 50s, which he said was testament to Collingwood's ruthless approach.

"They are really good at their inside pressure and they don't give time and space to get rid of the ball which puts a lot of pressure on the mids. They worked hard today but the Collingwood mids just worked that little bit harder," he said.

"They pretty much wanted it more than us all day. We go out there wanting to win contested footy and to lay tackles. Clearly they got on top of us and beat us at what we want to do."