The Roos conceded 20 goals to the Dogs on a day where efficiency and accuracy were paramount. Grima, who stood tall with 22 touches and seven marks, admitted the ease with which the Dogs scored was a concern.
“We have to get better as a back six or seven,” he said. “We’ll put our hand up and take the rap for that.
“With midfield pressure that plays a big part. Without shying away from it we need to have a lot better team defence.
“We didn’t get our reward for effort in the first half. We’ve got a young group so we are not going to shy away from what we’ve been training on for last three or four months. We just have to implement it a lot better.”
Grima said the Roos’ improvement this season was difficult to judge, given their inconsistency.
“It’s a bit hard to tell where the group’s at, I guess,” he said.
“We’ve played well against the teams we should play well against and we’ve failed against the better teams. Whether the Western Bulldogs are a 70-point better team at this stage - I don’t think they are.
“We just had a look at some of the stats and we stacked up a lot better than a team who's been beaten by 12 or 13 goals.”
In the wake of their hefty loss, Grima said the Roos were looking ahead to a big match against an in-form Fremantle.
“We’ve got to travel next week. It’s a big ground over at Subi and I think everyone can get better,” he said.
“We’ve put on some good pressure with teams this year, but we need to go better against teams in the top eight and as we saw again today we failed pretty miserably.
“A lot of blokes will be looking to redeem themselves next week.”
