Melbourne want to show they can be motivated by a carrot, not just a stick, in Monday's Queen's Birthday AFL clash with Collingwood.

The Demons impressed in beating Essendon last Friday night.

But both that win and their previous most recent victory, a 96-point thumping of Adelaide in round five, followed poor performances and a week of public criticism.

Coach Dean Bailey said the next step was for his young team to show they could produce the same sort of effort without having to be stung into action.

"I've been criticising them all week," Bailey joked of his motivational efforts.

"We've spoken about the roller-coaster ride, we've spoken about being consistent with our performance and we get an opportunity to be consistent in our performance on Monday.

"Monday will be scrutinised, one, because of the (blockbuster status of the) game, but people will (also) be expecting us to perform better than last week so we can get out of that up and down level, so we can be consistent."

The Demons' chances of an upset have been helped at selection.

Their midfield was boosted significantly when young guns Tom Scully and Jack Trengove made successful returns from injury and suspension against the Bombers.

And the Magpies' midfield has taken a big hit, with the loss of Dale Thomas (suspension), Dane Swan (soreness) and Dayne Beams (foot).

But Bailey said he did not want his men to be lulled into thinking the Magpies would be easier opponents because they were missing some stars.

"You're playing against the reigning premiers, who are in very good form," he said.

"Don't worry about the personnel who aren't there, you've got to worry about the personnel who are there.

"We have to play very well and we have to perform from the start and we can't afford to have lapses in concentration.

"We can't afford to be inconsistent with our contested possession and our tackling."

The Demons called on NRL club Melbourne Storm's assistant coaches Kevin Walters and David Kidwell to run some training sessions this week to sharpen their tackling.

"We'd like to think that come Monday we can fall back on the Storm and say at least they've given us the right pointers and our guys are tackling better than what they were," Bailey said.

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