CHIEF executive Peter Jackson has summarised Melbourne’s 2015 as “a year in which we continued what we started in 2013”.

Speaking at Melbourne’s annual general meeting in the Olympic Room at the MCG on Thursday night, Jackson said the club had made a positive start to rebuilding the club, but always wants to do better.

“We achieved what I have said we would achieve, both on and off the field,” he said.

“In terms of the reported result of $562k profit, that is pleasing, however, it’s not about the individual result. The more pleasing aspect is that it affirms what I said at the 2013 AGM … we had just reported a $3million loss and I said I was positive about the club’s future from a commercial perspective.

“We set ourselves to trade positively in 2014 and 2015, albeit at marginal levels, while we continued to rebuild the club both strategically and in football. I am very confident we are doing that, and the result for 2015 is just a signpost that we are on the right road. There still some distance left on the journey.”

Jackson said the club has “reasonably conservative forecasts looking forward”.

“We expect improvement in team performance, [which] will drive club generated revenue over the next two years. We are budgeting for a profit in the order of $250-300k in 2016. Assuming the status quo in our operations, we would expect a significant lift in operating profit in 2017,” he said.

“However, due to changes in the AFL strategic agenda and its impact on clubs, the status quo is not now a realistic assumption. Most of those changes will have a positive impact on the club, but will also require investment of resources, so it won’t be totally clear what the impact is likely to be on our 2017 trading position until the AFL finalises these strategic policies.

“Those AFL changes include the introduction of women’s football in 2017 with a view to a full national competition by 2020. Introduction of indigenous and multicultural talent academies in 2017 and a review of the second tier competition, which may have an impact on how all clubs field second tier teams.”

Jackson said it was important to understand the club has “the financial capacity to take advantage of these opportunities”.

“I am confident we will be able to do this,” he said.

From a football perspective, Jackson said the club was on the right track.

“We did aim to win seven games for the year, and we did. This may not sound an overly ambitious target, but it was realistic in our view based on recent seasons’ performance and where the development of our younger players is at. In no way do I suggest we are satisfied with the year. We had some disappointing games, and could have – and should have won more. But we did improve and had some important wins against teams that participated in the finals,” he said.

“Our list management over recent years has been very good. We have seen this in 2015 with the performances of [Jesse] Hogan and [Angus] Brayshaw in the Rising Star. But the extent of young talent brought into the club over the last three to four years is at last being recognised by AFL pundits. We showed this again in the 2015 trade period when we led other clubs in assessing the impact of the new points system for father/son and academy players and were able to secure two top 10 draft picks, as well as talented young players from other clubs.

“Young talent on its own is not enough. They need to be developed and coached in to very good AFL players. This is an area that Melbourne lacked not so long ago, but we have substantially increased our investment in this area, with coaches like [Simon] Goodwin, [Brendan] McCartney and more resources devoted to the Casey VFL system.

“And above all, we continue to develop the culture around the club, both in the football department and generally around all parts of the club. The players are starting to understand what it means for them to drive the standards on and off the field and the importance of them to achieving success. Nathan Jones is totally committed to this process and under him we are transitioning the leadership group.

“I am very confident about the path we are on in football. It is designed not for immediate success, but it is designed for sustained success and I know that is going to be achieved.”

Jackson said the club also looked at its brand and found these “simple brand truths”.

“We are the pioneers who started the game; our home is the MCG, and we own the name Melbourne,” he said.

“In developing a brand strategy, we know we need to respect our history traditions and reconnect with our Heartland, which we started during 2015, but we also need to talk to more people, and more younger people. We need connect with all people who take pride in calling Melbourne their home.

“This city has a world-wide reputation as a great city, a livable city and a sporting capital. We need to talk to more people who live in the city and we need to talk to more people who come to the city. To do this, our club’s identity needs to be synonomous with the city’s. “The prerequisite for achieving this of course is becoming a better football team and eventually a great football team – this is not negotiable.

“I said that we will start making this connection with the City more obvious in 2015 and build on it throughout the next few years.”

Jackson said Melbourne’s brand strategy also needed to reflect in the club’s visual identity – its logo.

“I know Melbourne Football Club has had quite a few in recent years, and we didn’t want to change it for the sake of it. We wanted to change it only if the current logo did not match our future brand aspirations and only if we could develop a better option,” he said.

“The old logo spoke to the past – it didn’t reflect our brand strategy, it didn’t speak to modern Melbourne and it didn’t speak to the future generations. It wasn’t bold when compared to our competitors.

“Most of you will be aware that we launched this new logo on 12^th November and we did so by ‘taking over the city of Melbourne.’ That is a metaphor for what we want to do as a club over the next decade – take over the city so the name Melbourne becomes synonomous with the Melbourne Football Club. Let me assure you however, that this can only happen if we are a very good football team on a sustainable basis and that is the club’s driving purpose.”