MELBOURNE coach Dean Bailey has encouraged his young players to soak up as much information as possible from their new assistant, Western Bulldogs champion Scott West.

West, who played 324 games for the Dogs, has joined the Demons in a part-time role to work with the midfield and Bailey believes he will be a valuable resource for the club's young onballers.

"It is not often that a person of his calibre and experience becomes available at the end of the year and we’re very fortunate to have him," Bailey said from Friday morning's pre-season training session at Casey Fields.

"I’ve already challenged our list today, not only to get to know him but learn from him and take every piece of knowledge he has, get into his head and extract it because it is going to help you as a player."

Bailey said the fact West had entered coaching less than two months after retiring from the game was important in the constantly changing landscape of football.

"From Scott’s point of view, he was keen for a part-time role so that he could still learn more about the game from a coaching point of view and I thought that was a really smart option for him," Bailey said.

"It is important to have a link, particularly for our group who have just come out of the game, and we are very fortunate to have him with us and we are very excited about his appointment and his future with Melbourne.

"Our players are at an age where they’re going to listen and they are going to be very productive [with] how they train and learn from his experience."

West swaps places with former Collingwood and Sydney Swans midfielder Paul Williams, who has joined the Bulldogs as an assistant coach, and will support Mark Williams – Melbourne's development coach last season.

Bailey said that having Josh Mahoney and Sean Wellman as assistants – the pair retired from the elite level in 2007 and 2004 respectively – was a big help to him as senior coach.

"We’ve got some good coaches here. Sean Wellman and Josh Mahoney are outstanding coaches ... Scott was a very talented player and we hope he’s going to be as talented as a coach."