COACH Paul Roos says there are no hard feelings between the club and former Demon Sam Blease, who has joined Geelong as a delisted free agent.
Roos said he wished Blease all the best after he played 33 matches for Melbourne from 2011-14.
“I texted Sammy Blease yesterday (Tuesday) and wished him all the best,” he said.
“For whatever reason, it doesn’t work at certain clubs, so you don’t question that.
“You just do your due diligence and you work out [what you need as a club].”
Roos said Blease was a good example of a young player who had come to a football club, but had no stability in his development with five coaches in six seasons at the club.
“We’ve got to correct that and we’ve done that with [future senior coach] Simon Goodwin coming in,” he said.
“The players know that they’ve got a coach for five years, [along with] Brendan McCartney, who had some chances to go to other clubs, but has come in and he’s one of the best development coaches.
“We’ve got Justin Plapp coming in and coaching Casey, so the pressure can’t be on young kids coming into footy clubs.
“They’ve got to come in and develop and I think the Melbourne players have been short-changed here and we’re changing it and we want to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”
Roos added Goodwin will work with development coaches Brett Allison and Brad Miller early on, before shifting his focus to the midfield with Ben Mathews. When McCartney starts in February, he will work in the development area.