THEIR form might be vastly different, but Melbourne coach Dean Bailey has predicted the opening siren will signal the launch of an all-out assault by the fired-up Demons against Essendon this week.
The Bombers will be gunning for their sixth win in the past seven matches at the MCG on Saturday, while the Dees remain stuck on two wins for the season, but Bailey remains optimistic despite a poor start that cost them dearly against the Kangaroos last week.
“We want to take the game to them, we want to get out there and attack the game from the start,” Bailey said at the Junction Oval on Friday.
“We want to win the game, we’re not here to just roll on for the next four or five weeks and get close and be happy with that, absolutely not. Every game I still believe you go out there with an intention to win that game.
“I expect us to attack the game, I expect us to take it up to Essendon. We have to do that because in our last game we started really poorly. That’s going to be very, very important [this week], it’s not so much a focus it’s just that we have to start well.
“There’s no greyness in it; we have to start well so there will be pressure on our start.”
Bailey said the mood around the club remained buoyant despite a troubled year on the field. A break from routine in the form of a mid-week outing to the movies helped to dispel any late-season monotony.
But the coach admitted some hard decisions on players’ futures will need to be made soon with the remaining five matches crucial.
“There are players who have a clear understanding that in this next period of games they still need to play very, very well and we need to see more improvement,” he said.
“We haven’t really discussed it to any great length at the moment, I think we’ll probably start to discuss those sorts of things next week, and to be fair to those players on our list we need to ensure that the direction we take we let them know as soon as we can.
“We’ll be doing that before the season is finished, when that is will be determined by myself, but I’m certainly not going to tell you when that might be. We need to be fair to those guys so they can actually get on and prepare for their life after football or life with us again next year.”
Jeff White remains on the outer at the club having been unable to force his way back into the side since being dropped after round 13, but Bailey denied a decision on the 31-year-old’s future had already been made.
“Jeff is a very professional player, Jeff trains very well, he’s very smart and he’s a professional in everything he does,” he said.
“He’s not in the team at the moment, but you never know down the track. His preparation is first class; I’ve got no issues with Jeff.”
Player of the future Nathan Jones was a surprise omission for some this week, but Bailey said there was nothing sinister in the 20-year-old’s demotion to the VFL.
“Nathan is a very driven young man, he puts an enormous amount of pressure on himself to play well, and I think for a young player that’s a good thing, but it’s nothing more than a little bit of confidence and a little bit of form,” he said.
“Hopefully he’ll go back to Sandy (Sandringham) and get a little bit of that; I’d rather him go back at this stage rather than his form fall further which would be even harder for him to come back from.
“But he’s a very driven young man, he’s an exciting player and he’s had a little hiccup at the moment, but he’ll work his way through that.”
