MELBOURNE ruckman Jeff White admits that his club faces a hurdle to overcome its sluggish start to the 2008 season.

But he is taking heart from having previously been through a similarly turbulent time.

White joined the Demons in 1998 and he says it was memories of that season, when Melbourne made a preliminary final, that have been re-kindled after his side’s disappointing opening two rounds.

“You don’t want to compare but in ’98 we had two big 100-point losses during the year and we bounced back from that,” White said after Saturday’s 95-point loss to the Western Bulldogs.

That ability to bounce back gives White hope that the Demons can again respond.

And the veteran big man knows there’s only one way his team can get back on the winner’s list – through sheer hard work this week.

“We’ve got to prepare to get our skill level up, take some risks and play aggressive footy and not play wide because [if we do] sides are going keep dishing out the same results,” he said.

“We’ve got the side, we’ve got the players to keep improving and I’ve never in my time at this club seen any fracture.

“We’ve just got to focus on trying to improve … let’s not hide away from the fact that we desperately need to improve, and that’s only going to happen on the training track.”

The Demons started Saturday’s game in far better style than their round one clash against Hawthorn, trailing by just a point at the first break.

However the Dees, who had been so competitive in the opening 30 minutes, fell away after quarter time.

“I firmly believe that at quarter-time we had a lot of confidence  but we just turned the ball over a little bit,” White said.

“We showed a lot of improvement in the first quarter [from last week] but, you know, footy is four quarters.

“I don’t think it’s a fitness thing, it’s just a matter of trying to learn the game style and everyone knowing their roles.

 “We turned the ball over today and gave away some silly free kicks, so if we can just chip away and start to improve that hopefully the result will look after itself but, it is hard to swallow at the moment.”