Roos said that the football department had undergone a restructure over the off-season. Photo: Getty Images
Melbourne coach Paul Roos says he aims to spend more time with the club's medical and fitness departments in his final year as senior coach before handing over to assistant Simon Goodwin after the 2016 season.
In an interview on the AFL website, Roos said he would also be more involved in player development.
"I'll be spending more time with the development department and general groups of players – whether that's younger players or the leadership group, which I was working with anyway last season," he said, adding that he would continue the role being played by Leading Teams and spend more formal and informal time with staff.
"It's something that when the season gets under way, we tend to forget about and we get into our offices. With the set-up we've got, I think it's important to get out of my office and get among the staff and get among the players and talk about what we want to achieve as a footy club."
Roos said that the football department had undergone a restructure over the off-season.
"We started talking about it, with about a month to go in the season. Josh [Mahoney] is terrifically proactive in making sure the footy department is at the cutting edge. Development tends to focus on the first, second and third year players, but we believe Brendan [McCartney, former Western Bulldogs coach] can really head up the development department, which includes Nathan Jones and Bernie Vince.
"With Goody [Simon Goodwin] taking control of ball movement and training, plus some game style as well, Daniel McPherson's role now becomes critical. It's a role that exists at other clubs and we haven't had it here before. He's in charge of our game style for our VFL side, so it's almost a one-stop shop, where I can say 'Frosty [McPherson], we need to work more on this', so that's a really, really important role.
"We've also seen this year how we've improved at Casey and the guys coming in were a lot better prepared."
