Melbourne coach Dean Bailey believes the Demons are moving forward despite the obvious disappointments of the past fortnight when they suffered their most significant defeats for the season.
The back-to-back losses to Collingwood and Essendon by a combined total of 114 points were a step down from the form which attracted plenty of positive press for the Demons over the first 10 weeks of the season.
Bailey argues that his team is coming off a 'pretty low base' and that its form ahead of the mid-season break is a quantum improvement on what it offered at the corresponding stage of last season.
"The last couple of weeks have been the most disappointing because they've been under the spotlight, but we are moving forward," said Bailey ahead of training at Junction Oval on Thursday morning.
"In pressure games we haven't really delivered the competitive edge that we had shown for the previous nine weeks, but I would think we've improved in that area compared to last year."
"The difference on Queen's Birthday and Friday night is that we had a couple of really bad quarters where we got heavily scored against ... but if you compare to last year we're moving in the right direction, however slowly that is."
Bailey said Matthew Warnock and Nathan Jones, both of whom missed the Essendon clash with viruses, had probably done enough on the training track this week to earn a recall for Saturday night's clash with the in-form Lions at the Gabba.
But the coach rated skipper James McDonald only a '50-50' chance to play because of a knee injury picked up against St Kilda at Carrara in Round 10.
"Junior's probably in some doubt, he hasn't trained too much this week," said Bailey.
Bailey said prized recruit Jack Watts was coping well with the criticism he's attracted in his two senior appearances so far, in particular Leigh Matthews' observation that Watts had shown him nothing to suggest that he was worthy of being taken at No.1 in the national draft.
"It comes with the territory," said Bailey of the media debate.
"Jack's a high profile player, he's going to be scrutinised and that's what comes with playing AFL footy now."
"Future draft picks and previous draft picks, particularly the No.1s are always going to be assessed and evaluated early in their careers."
Bailey said being on the road this weekend would give his players the chance to regroup and focus on a clash the market says they'll struggle to win.
"People are giving us very little chance to get close, that's the feedback I'm getting," he said.
"That's a challenge for our players and Saturday night but if your attitude's good enough and you're competitive for long enough ... I would expect us to be on the front foot."
