MELBOURNE co-captain Nathan Jones is keeping a level head in the lead up to his side’s Round 3 clash with Essendon.
The Demons have dropped their opening two matches of the season, but Jones won’t be deterred by external views of the group.
“I think the easy thing at the moment would be to succumb to the criticism and the noise,” Jones said on the club’s Inside Melbourne podcast.
“The role for particularly Jack and I and the boys in the leadership group, guys that have been in this position and are in more of a senior role with experience, is to remain calm.”
While Jones admits improvement is required, he understands his role as a leader is to keep the younger players on track.
“There’s got to be an element of urgency. We’ve still got areas we’ve got to get better at and we’ve got to do it quickly because the season can drift away fast,” he said.
“But there’s also an element of remaining calm and making sure guys are consistently trying to address the behaviours we want to see as a team – performing and preparing and training to the level we expect.
“That’s the only way out really. If we go the other way, I’ve been there, I’ve seen what can happen.”
The 31-year-old said there has been genuine positivity around the club this week and knows the group can’t shy away from the position they are in.
“You’ve got to stay the course, you’ve got to be courageous enough to keep fronting up and having a crack no matter what opinion or criticism flies our way,” Jones said.
“You just block that noise out and whatever happens in here we know what we’re doing, we know how we’re going to get out of it.”
With plenty of learnings to implement, Jones simply can’t wait to get back out on the MCG this Friday night.
“Our focus initially today will be to address some of the things that bobbed up out of our review and I think there will be an element of excitement,” he said.
“Even though we got beaten on the weekend I think guys left the club yesterday a lot more optimistic than when they rocked up. I think that’s due to great coaching and great messaging from Goody and the coaches, to leave the boys with some real hope that it actually isn’t too far away.
“That excited me – I left the club thinking geez I can’t wait to play again.
“I’m grateful it’s a six-day break because the sooner the better to get back out there and have another crack and face that challenge head on.”
With the stage set for a blockbuster battle with the Bombers, Jones encourages all fans to attend on Friday and help the red and blue bounce back.
“It’ll be important that our supporter base sticks with us and gets behind us,” he said.
“I understand there’d be an element of frustration, but we’re doing absolutely everything we can to make sure we arm wrestle back our form in the positive and get back playing that brand of footy they can really resonate with.”
Listen to the full podcast below:
In Episode 33 of Inside Melbourne, Nathan Jones and Jack Viney discuss the Round 2 loss against Geelong (2:50), how the co-captains deal with a loss (8:15) and Steven May's injury update (9:00). We talk about the importance of this Friday night's match (17:00), Nathan and Jack's family life (25:30) and questions from the outer (31:00).
