PAUL Roos has lauded the career of Chris Judd, who announced his retirement earlier in the week, after injuring his knee last round.

Judd, regarded as one of the all-time greats, was a Melbourne supporter before he became a superstar with the West Coast Eagles and then Carlton.

Roos laughed when jokingly posed the notion of coaxing him out of retirement for one season with the club he barracked for as a kid.

“I didn’t know he was a Melbourne fan,” he said with a laugh on Roos’ Views.

“I think everyone was pretty sad to see the way he finished up. With an ACL, it wasn’t great when you saw the vision and the photos of it and heard the fact that the great man was retiring.

“But the way he handled himself [at his retirement media conference] was indicative of the way he’s handled his whole career. He’s been a terrific ornament to the game and an unbelievable player.”

Roos said he sat next to Judd as last year’s Grand Final between Hawthorn and the Sydney Swans at the MCG and said it was a great insight.

“[I’ve had] the opportunity to meet him and I sat with him at the Grand Final last year and had a really good chat about footy,” he said.

“So he’s just a pleasure to be around and he’ll be sorely missed, by not only the Carlton Football Club, but football in general.”

Roos said Judd was “right up there” among the best he had seen in the game.

“When I was coaching Sydney, we saw him at his absolute best. He’s as good a player as played, certainly in my time watching and playing the game,” he said.

As for whether he’d take Judd or former Geelong and now Gold Coast superstar Gary Ablett, Roos said it was a difficult question.

“It’s a tough one,” he said.

“One of my boys actually asked me that the other night. They said ‘who would you take?’ I said ‘it’d probably depend on the rest of the make-up of your team’.  

“In order to split those two I think you’d have to look at team balance and what you needed. Either one is going to be fantastic, so I’d have to check the other 21 before I made a decision.”