DAY one of the Paul Roos era at Melbourne started in all too familiar fashion on Wednesday, with a key recruit watching on from the sidelines.
Dom Tyson, the gun midfielder extracted from Greater Western Sydney during last month's trade period was missing in action when the Demons' first to four year players started their pre-season campaign under Roos, the club's big-name, high-profile new coach.
Tyson pinged a hamstring last week and while the injury is not serious, the Demons will give him plenty of time to get himself right, given his injury problems in his two years with the Giants, and setbacks to other key recruits in the past two years including Mitch Clark and Chris Dawes.
Otherwise, there was cautious excitement as the 2005 Sydney Swans premiership coach grabbed his whistle and got to work. And one of his first tasks is to temper excitement about emerging key forward Jesse Hogan, who kicked 39 goals in 15 VFL games this year and becomes eligible to play for the Demons in 2014.
Roos has spent the last fortnight watching tapes of Melbourne from this year, but has yet to get around to reviewing the VFL footage.
"To be honest, I haven't actually seen him [Hogan] play, so I'm hoping he's as good as everyone's says he is," Roos said at AAMI Park on Wednesday.
"From my point of view, my first thing with Jesse is to get him through the preseason and train him really hard. He's a really good young kid but he wants to earn his place in the team, not be given it because he's a high draft pick or a player with really high expectations. So that's the first step. "
The tapes also revealed the extent to which the Demons need to bolster their midfield. The recruitment of Tyson, Daniel Cross and Bernie Vince helps in that regard, and Roos all but confirmed that Jack Watts would join them next year.
It is a move he admits is inspired by Fremantle's success in 2013, with big movers through the midfield such as Nat Fyfe, David Mundy and Michael Barlow.
"What we and a lot of other teams lack is big midfielders. Jack, with the ball in hand, is very good. He's a really good decision maker and he's really smart.
"If he can get in there with his size, speed and strength, with his ability to use the ball that's a real positive because we need more midfielders."
Roos intends to use the rest of 2013 as an exercise in getting to know the players and for the players to get to know him and the mainly new coaching staff.
"It's about building relationships with the players and not bombarding them with gameplans," he said. "We'll start to implement the gameplan at a camp in the start of December and prior to Christmas."
He will enter 2014 without the hand-picked coaching heir apparent that was part of the arrangement when he first accepted the Melbourne job.
Roos said the plan to bring Swans’ assistant coach Stuart Dew to Melbourne was foiled not because of any issues with the Swans, but because of Dew’s decision to stay in Sydney for family reasons.
Melbourne will continue to identify his long-term successor and Roos encouraged those with an interest in the job to come forward, saying the large number of assistant coaches who had become gun shy after missing out on senior vacancies had become a football-wide issue.
Roos refused to discuss the issue of any bad blood between himself and his former club, saying his focus was now squarely on the Demons.
"I'm Melbourne coach and I have moved on. I don’t have a problem with anyone at the club (the Swans) and I enjoyed my time there but I'm now part of the Melbourne footy club."
