COACH Paul Roos says Melbourne’s young guns are “not the saviours” of the football club.

Speaking at the club’s season launch dinner at the MCG on Friday night, Roos said it was not fair that young players were labeled the club’s immediate answers. Instead, he said that Melbourne’s emerging players should listen – something that he said was a “dying art” in many young people today.

“You are here to learn and you are here to listen and you are here to develop,” he said.

“Too often in the past, unfortunately, this football club has put up these young blokes as the saviours of the club – they are not here to be the saviours of the football club.

“They are here to learn, listen and develop and eventually if they do that they’ll get good habits and become very, very successful players and that’s their role.”

Roos spoke of the importance of strong leaders at football clubs and reflected on how Fitzroy great Garry Wilson – who won five best and fairests with the Lions – had made a massive impact on him as a young player. He added that he bumped into Wilson earlier this week in a café and it was a timely reminder of the importance he played in Roos’ life.

“Two of the best players I’ve ever seen are Robbie Flower … and Garry Wilson was one of the best players I’ve ever played with,” he said.

“I don’t see Garry that often, but to sit down and spend 20 or 30 minutes with him just reminded me of the life lessons that he gave me as a young player coming to the football club.

“As a 17 or 18-year-old boy coming to the Fitzroy Football Club, I was so lucky to be exposed to the leaders of that group. To spend 20 minutes with Garry Wilson really wound the clock back for me, as to how really fortunate I was to have him in the leadership group.”

Roos said another former Fitzroy star Laurie Serafini, who he remained in contact with, had also had a strong impact on him as a youngster. He said Fitzroy’s leaders had the greatest influence on him as a player – not the coaches.

“Great leaders hand down behaviours to the next generation,” he said.

“There’s no question that when I look back on my career – as significant as I thought the coaches were – I thought the leaders had more significance to my career than the coaches coming through and that’s no disrespect to Robert Walls and David Parkin etc.”

Roos was adamant that it was up to the players to make the biggest difference at any football club, including Melbourne.

“Football is like life. You make choices in life and you make choices in football,” he said.

“If you make the right choices, you won’t have to wait that long to get this club to where it should be.”

Reflecting on the club’s pre-season, Roos said the Demons had made improvement, but last week’s practice match loss to Hawthorn was a reality check.

“If we don’t do the things that we’ve worked on – we’re going to get belted, because the standard and the best in this competition is very, very good,” he said.

“To go from 17^th to first is very, very difficult, so it did expose us … and it was a very, very valuable lesson dished out by [coach] Alastair [Clarkson] and the Hawthorn Football Club – they’re everything we want to become as a football club.

“I thank Alastair for it and setting such a high standard for everyone to follow.”

Meanwhile, Roos said chief executive Peter Jackson had already made a “significant” impact on the club. He added that Jackson had painted a clear picture for him before he came back as an AFL coach.

“Peter was pretty honest and he didn’t sugarcoat it, but the worst it sounded, the more exciting it got for me, as a coach coming back – and what a great challenge it was,” he said.

Roos said he also asked for three things from the board – to be supportive, well-informed and silent. And he believed Melbourne had achieved that so far.

“I know that (silent) can be pretty hard for board members, because they’re very, very successful individuals in their own right. But often boards are like umpires – good umpires you don’t notice and good boards you don’t necessarily notice,” he said.

“The reason you don’t [notice the board] is because the football club is in good shape. The less the board has to do, the better the shape of the football club is.

“We have a strong, powerful board and a new board … I think we’re on our way to having some success in that.”

Roos also spoke of his love for the MCG.

“It’s as good as any place as I’ve been; it is fantastic,” he said.