COACH Paul Roos says he’s accountable as much as the players for Melbourne’s dismal loss to the West Coast Eagles at the MCG last Sunday.

Speaking at the MCG on Tuesday, Roos said the club was “all in it together”.   

“I’m the coach of the team that’s got beaten by 93 points, so I’m not proud of my performance,” he said.

“You’ve got to analyse your own performance, along with the players. It’s a whole club effort – you win together and you lose together.

“We lost by 93 points, so I’m the coach of that particular team and for me it’s unacceptable and I’ve got to do better with what I do.”

Although Roos was extremely frustrated by the loss, he said it was important to be rationale about the result.

“The first 24 hours [after the loss], like everyone else, you’re very disappointed,” he said.

“Probably in the first eight to 10 [hours], you go over it in your mind and then as a footy club, you take a deep breath and you realise where you’ve been and where you’re trying to head to.

“It’s about analysing and setting some standards and then the players discussing in an open forum about how they feel about the performance. Then you move forward. That’s what we’ve got to keep doing – moving forward as a football club.”

With the Demons taking on the Giants at Spotless Stadium on Sunday, Roos said it was a great opportunity for the players to galvanise as a group this weekend.

“We certainly enjoyed travelling when I was coaching the Swans. Even though we had 11 away games, it was a good opportunity for the players to socialise with each other and eat dinner together and those sorts of things,” he said.

“It’s certainly something Melbourne-based teams don’t have as much of, but it’s the balance though – do you want to get on a plane every second week? Probably not.

“Every game’s a challenge for us … it doesn’t matter who we play or where we play. We just take that on and it’s part of the learning – it doesn’t matter whether we’re playing the Giants this week up in Sydney or it’s the Eagles here, certainly getting away together is probably not a bad thing.”

In terms of selection for this round, Roos said players still needed to earn their place in the team, although he did flag changes.

“My philosophy is pretty simple in terms of any player – they need to earn selection in the team,” he said.

“What I’ve thought about over the last 24 hours – we need to throw the team around and we can’t throw the same team out again and it’s got to seem different for the players. That’s what I’ll try and do this week.

“It’s got to seem like it’s a different team that is running out and it’s got to have different challenges and different roles and I think there will be some changes. It’ll be based more on the players we need to get into the team.

“We’ve had two performances and we thought the first week was good and we thought the second week was unacceptable, so that’s my role and the match committee role – to try and get the guys a real opportunity to win the game.

“The best way to do that is to throw the team around and make a couple of changes.”