FORMER Geelong premiership player Max Rooke has joined Melbourne as a development coach.

Rooke will reunite with former teammates Matthew Egan and Shannon Byrnes at the Demons, as well as Brendan McCartney, who was an assistant coach at Geelong.

The tough nut spent 2016 with Gold Coast as a development coach. 

Melbourne football manager Josh Mahoney said Rooke returned to Victoria for family reasons.

"Since retiring from the AFL, Max has been working as a development coach, firstly for Geelong for a few years and then Gold Coast last year," he told melbournefc.com.au.

"Through family reasons, Max became available and we're delighted that he's decided to join Melbourne.

"Max is passionate about developing young players and driving standards on and off the field, which aligns very well with our overall philosophy on players.

"This completes our full-time coaching appointments for 2017 and we’re very happy with the group of coaches we’ve been able to put together.

"This group has a good balance of experience and recently retired players and we look forward to them working with our players moving forward."

Rooke played 135 matches for the Cats and won flags in 2007 and 2009.