MELBOURNE’S disappointing recent record against the Brisbane Lions hasn’t been a focus for Sunday’s clash at the MCG, according to assistant coach Daniel McPherson.

The forward line coach said he was fully aware of last year’s fadeout against the Lions at Etihad Stadium in round 19 – when the Demons went down by 23 points after leading by seven points at three quarter-time, and former Dee Stefan Martin polled three Brownlow Medal votes for his best-on-ground performance.

But he said the fact that Melbourne hadn’t defeated the Lions since round three, 2011 at the MCG hadn’t come into the equation for this weekend’s encounter.  

“I didn’t know that [we hadn’t defeated the Lions in the past five matches],” McPherson told Dee TV.

“I’m aware we lost last year, but prior to that I’m not really that interested. I don’t think it’s that significant – given we’ve got a lot of new players in the team over the last couple of years.

“We’ll just approach it, based on the research we’ve done into how Brisbane is travelling – and they’ve been pretty strong in the last couple of weeks.

“We’ll have to play really well to beat them, but we believe our best is good enough to win.”

McPherson said the Lions – although they have won just two matches this season and are on the bottom of the ladder – had shown some encouraging form against Adelaide, Fremantle and Sydney Swans respectively in the past three rounds.

“They’ve been pretty good the past month or so,” he said.

“They’ve also started to get back some good experienced players in the team like [Tom] Rockliff, [Dayne] Beams and [Pearce] Hanley, who are all playing really well, so they’re starting to get a strong midfield core through there.

“They’re similar to us in a lot of ways – they’re a young team and they’ve got parts of their game, which is really strong and other parts they need to work on.

“We’re in a similar situation in that regard, but we just need to let our strengths shine more brightly than theirs on the weekend.”