COACH Paul Roos says he wouldn’t play unrestricted free agent James Frawley for the rest of the season, if the key tall had decided that his future was elsewhere other than Melbourne in 2015 and beyond.
Roos said there would be no point selecting the key defender/forward as it would be keeping out another Demon, whose future was at the club.
“If I knew that a player had already made the decision to go to another club under free agency and had already committed to that club – there’s no point in them playing at your club, because it’s taking up a spot that you could use to develop another player,” he told SEN 1116 on Thursday.
“If he (Frawley) said ‘I’m going to move on and I’m going to go to Geelong’. I’d say ‘no’ and I wouldn’t play him, because I don’t think there is any point in doing that for the future of the Melbourne Football Club.
“There is a lot of focus on James and I know James reasonably well now. He’s really invested in the club at the moment and he’s engaged in all the meetings and he’s playing good footy and I don’t believe he’s made the decision.
“If he does, and when he does, if he wants to come and chat to me, I’d think he’d understand that as well. If he does want to leave – that’s fine, but there’s no point in playing him.”
Roos believes that Frawley has yet to make up his mind – whether he will remain a Demon next year and beyond or switch clubs.
“I don’t think he knows,” he said.
Meanwhile, Roos said he wasn’t caught up in speculation that Melbourne had spoken to GWS young gun Jeremy Cameron about a future with the Demons.
“Most clubs are looking at what players are out of contract and how you get your team better and who might be available,” he said.
“There is a lot of discussion that goes on at a footy club and certainly on that particular player, I’m not aware of any direct contact or any indirect contact to be honest.”