COACH Paul Roos says his side’s poor use of the ball was the major reason for his team’s 37-point loss to St Kilda at the MCG on Sunday.

Roos said Melbourne “slaughtered the footy”, which made it “very hard to score” and ultimately cost it the game. 

“We had 53 turnovers through the midfield,” he said post-match.

“To their (St Kilda) credit, they were harder around the contest. They tackled better and won the contested footy.

“We just couldn't move the ball even when we had free targets we seemed to miss them. Whether that was a confidence thing – they're the challenges of the coaching group to work through those periods.”

Despite the disappointing display from the Demons, Roos praised St Kilda’s performance.

“Give them some credit. I thought they tackled well and their pressure was good, but a lot of it is if you miss that first target, the second one you get picked up on under pressure,” he said.

“If you're clean with your first possession it does cut down a lot of handballs. If you're not, then you tend to get pressure around [you] and you've got to go 'bang, bang, bang' to try to get back out again.”

Roos said the players were attempting to adhere to instructions, but simply couldn’t always execute it.

“The players would acknowledge that. From a positive point of view at least they're actually trying to implement what we're teaching them – faster ball movement, more aggressive,” he said.

“That's what happens. When your skills are poor you open yourself up to turnovers the other way. We tried to generate scores, we tried to generate inside 50s.

“But if you can't [produce] simple skill execution it's really hard. It seems to happen in patches. We've just got to keep working.”