MELBOURNE remains confident that rarely-sighted key forward prospect Jack Watts will play a significant role at AFL level this season despite his slow start to 2010.

Watts, the first player selected at the 2008 NAB AFL Draft, has kicked two goals in three games for the Casey Scorpions while the Demons have put together a three-game winning run.

A back injury late in the pre-season didn't help the Watts' chances of quickly adding to the three AFL games he played last year and football manager Chris Connolly said the club would remain patient.

"We're determined to let him get some real confidence and play a lot of game time at Casey to continue to develop his game," Connolly told afl.com.au.

"He's got outstanding senior AFL attributes, but he's just got to continue to build his body as he gets taller and we know that he'll make his way into the senior team at some stage."

While Watts continues to cautiously feel his way onto the AFL scene, perception of his progress outside the club hasn't been helped by the excitement generated by Nic Naitanui - the player the Dees passed over in favour of Watts.

The athletic Eagle was recently rated the youngster most likely to become the best player in the competition in a survey of AFL coaches, has received a NAB AFL Rising Star nomination this season and will play his 16th senior game on the weekend.

Melbourne, in particular coach Dean Bailey, quickly tired of comparison between the two players, but has maintained Watts has been largely unaffected by it.

"He's been outstanding. We can't fault him in any way. What you see is what you get with Jack," Connolly said.

"He's not ahead of himself in any way shape or form. We profiled him as a person, that's why we took him at No.1, and he's ticking all the right boxes to show that our profiling was right.

"We've got a pretty special player in our midst and he's going to be around for a very long time."

Watts' task in breaking into the side has been made all the more difficult by the Demons' last month which saw them fall agonisingly short against Collingwood before launching into their unbeaten run.

That form has kept former first-team regular Jared Rivers confined to the VFL, but Connolly said the Dees' heartening start had not caused a reassessment of the club's on-field goals in 2010.

"With the confidence of our preparation we knew that we were going to end up playing some pretty good football, but it's very much week to week," he said.

"What's the point in talking about finals? It's more about team and individual development at this point. No one's skewed off that, no one's talked about anything but that and that will continue to be how we go about it.

"I don't think anyone's really changed their demeanour in terms of the hard work [because of the wins], but there is confidence that there is light at the end of the tunnel."