The Roos have dropped winnable games to Gisborne and Castlemaine in the past three weeks and are now under siege to retain their place in the BFNL top five.

Last Saturday’s two-point loss to Castlemaine was particularly painful, with the Roos continuing a recent trend of poor finishing in front of goal.

“It was lost opportunities early that cost us the win,’’ Stevens lamented

“The last four weeks we’ve been like that and we’ve lost two games of footy because of it.

“It’s something we have to address because we’re in a fight now, we’re in a real fight for an opportunity to play finals footy.”

The Roos are just one win clear of Castlemaine, Gisborne and Kyneton and they face a daunting next three games against top four teams Golden Square, Eaglehawk and Sandhurst.

“With the position we’re in, if you want to play finals footy you need to beat teams that are above you on the ladder,’’ Stevens said.

“If you can’t, you’re likely to go out of the finals in straight sets anyway.

“We have Golden Square and Eaglehawk at home in our next two games and they will be massive challenges for us.

“We need to compete and, hopefully, on our home ground we can win at least one of the two.

“(To have any chance of making the finals) we need to win the games around our mark which we’ve failed to do in two or our last three games.”

The Roos could get some relief from their long absentee list in the next few weeks.

Key midfielder Simon Davies looks set to resume against Golden Square, while Corey Greer (broken jaw) is more likely to return against Eaglehawk.

Former Bendigo Gold ruckman Jeremy Lamden played in the Kangaroo Flat reserves last week and got through unscathed.

Stevens said he would wait until later in the week to decide if Lambden would play another reserves game or earn promotion to the senior side to play the Bulldogs.