COACH Paul Roos says he’s excited about the possibility of coaching in front of the biggest home and away crowd of his career, when his Demons host the Magpies at the MCG in the traditional Queen’s Birthday blockbuster.
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The biggest crowd Roos has coached in front of is the 2006 Grand Final, when his then Sydney Swans fell short to West Coast by the narrowest of margins. On that occasion, the crowd was 97,431.

The largest home and away clash Roos has coached in front of was 72,393 when he guided the Swans against Collingwood in round 21, 2003 at ANZ Stadium.

But Roos is optimistic his much-improved Demons and the top four Pies can draw a crowd of 80,000-plus on Monday.

“[There is talk] of 80,000, so hopefully we do get a big crowd,” he said at AAMI Park on Tuesday.

“It’ll be new to me going to the MCG [for a crowd this big in a home and away clash] apart from the finals – and when we played them, I was coaching Sydney.

“It’s real exciting … for the Melbourne fans and I know the Collingwood fans will get along, so if we can crack 80,000, hopefully we can get a good game.”

Roos said Melbourne had made strong improvement throughout the year and the challenge was to keep building every match.

“We thought we played really well for 100 minutes of the game on the weekend, but when you’re playing against top sides, you’ve got to play for 120 minutes and that’s what we learned again from Port,” he said.

“We’ve just got to continue to get better and playing Collingwood on a big stage on the MCG – it’s the only game at the MCG this weekend – so it’s a great opportunity for us to continually test ourselves and continue to get better.”

Although Roos acknowledged his team had come on in leaps and bounds this season, he said it was difficult to assess how far the Demons had come – and how much more improvement they had in them this year.

“It’s hard to say and we’ve only won three games,” he said.

“I’m super competitive … and if I can wind the clock back [to when I arrived at the club] I always talked about percentage and trying to be more competitive and we’ve done that – there’s no question about that.

“Now I’m getting greedy and saying ‘let’s keep moving along’. But to the players’ credit, I always felt from day one they were going to be a responsive group and that they were really hungry to learn and listen.

“At the moment and on the weekend we played against Port, the best team in the competition, and they got us in the first eight minutes and really the last 10 minutes [of the match], so it was really an 18-minute period.

“We’ve certainly been happy with the players, but we know where we want to get to and we know there is still a big gap.”

Meanwhile, Roos said he hadn’t heard from the ‘unnamed recruiter’ since he gave him a whack following his post-match media conference after Melbourne’s clash against Port Adelaide in Alice Springs.

The unnamed recruiter criticised Melbourne in the Herald Sun in April for giving up pick No.2 to GWS. The Giants then drafted Josh Kelly at No.2 and the Demons gained Dom Tyson from GWS and pick No.9, which resulted in Christian Salem.

The unnamed recruiter made his comments days after Kelly kicked two late goals against the Demons in round three to help the Giants over the line.

“I haven’t actually got a phone call yet. I’m still looking forward to that phone call,” Roos said.  

“I’m definitely looking forward to speaking to him and just setting his path on his next vocation.”