After such a serious injury, are you approaching 2009 as your last season or do you feel you've got a few years left?

RR: I'm 29 and at 30 or 31 you're starting to wind up your career these days. I'd suggest that gone are the days of Robert Harvey. I'm going to treat every game – and this is where the achilles injury has benefitted me – as my last. If I do this [injury] again, it's basically [over]. As they carry me off, I'll be waving goodbye, because I won't be coming back. If that happens, that'd be really, really horrible, but that's the truth of it.

The same as James [McDonald], we've got to treat every game as if it's our last. We're going to be going 'balls to the wall' with absolutely everything, because we've been on this journey now for 12 or 13 years and we haven't got a premiership. We're now at a team that has hit rock bottom. Is that our fault? We feel a bit of responsibility, because we've been here for 12 or 13 years. We came close and we've played a lot of finals, but for whatever reason, this football club has found it very, very hard to survive. There have been a lot of factors, but no-one has wanted to take responsibility.

At the moment, there has been a lot of finger-pointing at our football club and people have been laughing at us and that really, really hurts. I think we're an unlucky club. We're the most unlucky club. We just don't have an identity, for whatever reason. We play at the MCG, but we don't have a home and people say we don't stand for anything and that cuts deep. It absolutely hurts a lot. It's really disappointing.

We feel very responsible for that, so this year, for us, is about changing steps and that's a real mantra for our football club – it's time to change perceptions.

Despite the tough situation the club has found itself in, several positives emerged on and off the field in 2008. Is that how you felt as a player? 

RR: Definitely. This year has been the bottoming out year and I really believe that this football club is on the way up. It's got some guys [here now] that have had a taste of it and they know what it's about now. They're starting to take ownership of it now and they hate the fact that we are the worst team. They're now doing a pre-season to fix that, whereas last season they were probably doing a pre-season to actually make it themselves.

We're going to get some good draft picks now, so it's only going to be positive for the football club. We need positives at the moment – we need a lot of them. We have a real positive vibe at the club and we've got to. A lot of people are trying to tear us apart and put us down, but young guys don't feel that. They're saying: 'Right, what have we got to do next'. They've got a lot of energy.

The way they've come back from this off-season break – after six weeks – they look in top nick. We're not getting flogged, we're going through a process and coming back this early makes us realise we can't accept what happened last season. It takes hard work to get some special things in life – we look at Hawthorn and Geelong and we're really jealous. We're really keen to atone for last season.

In your time at Melbourne, is the club now on track to being its most professional?

RR: Most definitely. All of the guys that have been put in place, the brains trust, have tried to fix the problems this club has had in terms of its identity and where we're situated. We're trying our hardest to get the MCG back. Every regime has tried their utmost to get the Melbourne Football Club back at the MCG – but we just haven't got it. So we've got to sit and down and take our medicine.

We've got to go right back to square one. We're going out to Casey Fields and there has been a lot of conjecture about that. But we feel as though we're getting back in touch with the people, whereas we've been in the CBD and lost in the jungle. We're going back to find an identity. We want to get in touch with the people and hopefully they come with us.

We can really do what Hawthorn has done – they went to Waverley and worked hard at it and stuck to their guns. They bunkered down and a lot of people pointed the finger at them, but they've found their way out of it.

We've got to go and do the hard yards somewhere else and it'll be really, really exciting to come back in the city and have our new facility, like Collingwood have. But for the next couple of years, we've got to do it tough, because we weren't good enough.

It's time to take the slap on the wrist and do the hard yards. Then we'll come back with really nice facilities that lots of other AFL clubs have, because we've got some pretty ordinary facilities. I would argue that VFL clubs have better facilities than we do. Not having goal posts up until bloody April the following year has just been ridiculous.

And just finally, how is your music career going?

RR: A lot of people are asking me if I'm going to do the music thing [next year] on the back of It Takes Two. I've had some fun with that, but I'm moving forward and I'll just enjoy it [from now on], like I've always done. I'm 110 per cent football and want to get back.

[The CD sales] have been good. I've had a lot of people buy it and come up to me and said they've enjoyed it and others hate it. But you've got to put yourself out there sometimes and you've got to cop the crap that comes with it.

The family is proud of me and that's all that matters. I've had a wild ride and I'm still playing footy, so I'm really, really lucky. Hopefully I can sell a few more albums over the Christmas break.