FORWARD line coach Daniel McPherson says the Demons are considering mixing up their attacking set-up for this Saturday’s clash against Geelong at the MCG.

Coach Paul Roos flagged in his post-match media conference last weekend that James Frawley was likely to spend more time down back, after being switched from defence to attack for much of this year.

McPherson said the Dees were also pondering whether to play another second ruckman up forward or a smaller set-up.

“We’ve tried a couple of times with the second ruckman [up forward] and it only works if the ruckman playing as a forward is marking it up forward,” he told melbournefc.com.au.

“Gawny has struggled a little bit with doing that, so whether we go back to a smaller forward line this week or we persist with that for another week, we’ll decide over the next day or so how that works.

“But I think with two or three tall targets in there, it’s really reliant on the smaller guys getting back into the forward line. We’re pushing up the ground to help out at the stoppages, but we’ve got to get back in to give the guys a bit more support.

“Dawesy (Chris Dawes) is often outnumbered and he’s working really hard, but it’s been pretty difficult, because he’s often got a spare rolling back in front of him, so that’s really important that the other blokes are getting back in to give him a hand.”

McPherson said last round’s performance against Fremantle was “really disappointing” after reviewing the match.

“We thought we were really competitive for the first quarter and a half and then the last 10 minutes before half-time, we fell away badly,” he said.

“The whole third quarter was a bit of a wipe out.

“We just allowed them to really control the game for the whole quarter and it wasn’t until the last quarter, where we dug in a bit, that we stopped their scoring and [it] allowed us to feel like we were back involved in the game a bit.”

Although he said it wouldn’t get any easier against Geelong, McPherson was adamant if Melbourne stuck to its task it could match it with the Cats.

“It’s about trying to get back what’s worked for us this season,” he said.

“We’ve shown that when we stick to the game plan and everyone plays their role within that, we can be competitive and beat the really good teams.

“Geelong is one of the really good teams – and has been for a long time – but we think if we stick to our game plan and are really disciplined, we can be really competitive against them.”

McPherson said the team had done several things really well this year, but had fallen away in recent weeks and needed to keep it simple.

“Like the whole team, we’ve got to get back to working really hard on what we’ve shown works for us,” he said.

“The young blokes – not only in the forward line, but across the ground – have got away from that in the last week and probably the week before.

“So we’ve shown through the year we have the ability and we’ve got the game plan to compete with the really good teams, but we just have to get back to that stuff and come at the ball strongly … the little things and the basics. Skill errors are hurting us and transition on defence is hurting us.”