AFL premiership coach Paul Roos has teed off on his former club Melbourne and called the Demons’ season “deplorable” following a shocking fall from grace in 2019.
Melbourne copped the wrath of club legend Garry Lyon last week, who called their preliminary final appearance last season an aberration of the past decade, and on Monday it was Roos unleashing.
The Demons snapped a 12-year finals drought in 2018 but despite keeping their star-studded midfield, they’ve fallen off a cliff this season and won just five of 18 games.
They sit second-last on the ladder and face premiership contenders West Coast and Collingwood over the next fortnight.
Roos coached Melbourne from 2014-16 but only produced a 31 per cent win record before he parted ways with the club after 66 games.
“They’ve won five games — it’s been a deplorable season … you can’t sugar-coat it,” Roos told On The Couch.
“Given the injuries, if they had have won eight to 12 (games), you could justify it. But five wins with the talent they have is just unacceptable.
“There’s no recognisable brand. That’s the disappointing thing from my point of view.”
Roos said the Demons had to be tougher in defence.
“I always say ‘contested footy, defence’, because we know in this particular year — for whatever reason — most teams are turning the footy over,” Roos said.
“We talked about Richmond before, if they turn the ball over, they’re safe behind the ball. If Melbourne turn the ball over, they just get scored against — and we’ve seen that for the last two years. That fixed it up at the end of last year, that’s what I want to see.
“Players don’t mean to kick it out of bounds on the full, players don’t mean to miss a target — it’s frustrating. But get your defence set up, be hard to score against and we know that’s the panacea for success.”