The issue of tanking was re-ignited on Monday night by comments from former Demon and current Carlton midfielder Brock McLean on television on Monday night.
The AFL has interviewed McLean in relation to the comments he made about his time at Melbourne in 2009 but has not reported its findings.
Speaking at Melbourne's president's lunch on Sunday, McLardy said that for anyone to suggest the club's players did not give their all each and every time they ran on to the field was unacceptable.
However McLardy said the club had made list management decisions at that time with an eye on the future and are continuing to do so now. He said it was standard practice for every AFL club.
"At any time in the competition there are teams poised to make the finals and there are teams trying to build sides capable of making the finals and we clearly sat in the latter category," McLardy said.
"We had (in 2009) just farewelled a generation of senior players like (Jeff) White and Adem (Yze) and (David) Neitz and we were young and rebuilding and we continue to do so.
"Were we focused on getting games experience into young players? Yes, we were. Were we trying to develop our players by experimenting with different positions? Yes, we were. Did we select young players, sometimes ahead of experienced players to see what they were made of? Yes we did and like many other sides we are doing exactly the same thing today. We are managing our list in context of where we are in the competition."
McLardy suggested that if the priority pick had remained in place in 2012 then decisions the club had made this year such as playing Jared Rivers forward or having Brent Moloney play VFL would have been likely to subject to similar speculation as those made in 2009.
"These are list management decisions and they are only called into question when there is perceived to be an obvious benefit," McLardy said.
He also re-iterated his statement from Tuesday that the club supported the AFL investigation.
