MELBOURNE coach Mark Neeld has refused to enter the tanking debate sparked by the comments of former Demon and current Carlton midfielder Brock McLean on television on Monday night.

Neeld said that all his dealings with the Melbourne Football Club and its players had been conducted with the highest of integrity.

He said he endorsed the statement Melbourne released on Tuesday that said the Demons supported the AFL's decision to interview McLean about his comments.

Neeld said any talk of potential penalties being applied to a club if they were found to be tanking games was hypothetical and therefore not worthy of consideration.

"Dealing with hypotheticals is not the coach's go," Neeld said. "We'll wait [and] see what happens with the AFL investigation and deal with it then."

McLean said he left Melbourne because he was uncomfortable with the approach he felt the club was taking to games in the latter part of 2009.

"They don't call it tanking; we would call it 'experimenting' or whatever it was," McLean said on Fox Footy's On the Couch program.

Neeld said he had not discussed the issue with his players so was not able to relay how they were feeling about it being raised again.

"The way that our players have trained and they have gone about their business this year has been really professional," Neeld said.

"[They are a] really young group, inexperienced and they are learning to play footy in a particular way, they are learning to conduct themselves as AFL players and they are doing a really good job.

"Our club has had a few issues this year to deal with that are a little bit unusual and there is a lot of learning and they are doing a really good job."

Despite the external focus on the tanking debate, Neeld has had his hands full focusing on Sunday's clash against Gold Coast at the MCG.

"It should be a really close tussle," Neeld said of the looming clash.

There will be two forced changes from the team that lost to North Melbourne, through the suspension of Neville Jetta and injury to Daniel Nicholson.

Neeld indicated Jack Watts would play if he managed to get through Thursday's training session after missing three weeks with an ankle injury. He said Cale Morton was being considered for a return after showing good form in the VFL.

Asked about the possibility of selecting 2010 No.12 draft pick Lucas Cook for his first game, Neeld was more definite. He said the young forward was yet to complete a full pre-season and his two years at the club and it would be unfair to Cook to select him in the seniors as he was not yet ready.

"[He's] going reasonably well but [has] not played enough VFL football to really warrant AFL selection," Neeld said.

Liam Jurrah remains a couple of weeks away from returning to the VFL, with the forward needing more conditioning before playing.

Neeld said despite external perception, it was not difficult to keep the group focused for the last five games, even as speculation mounts about what changes might occur to Melbourne's list at season's end.

Neeld said the club had put a lot of faith in its young players and they were showing improvement.

"We need to do a little bit of reshaping to our list but we have got a core group of players who will be really good for our footy club," Neeld said.

"We have got great faith in them."