PAUL Roos would prefer to appoint co-captains to lead Melbourne in 2014 but will wait until February before any decision on who leads the team is made.
Although not opposed to having a single captain, Roos told melbournefc.com he likes the idea of spreading the leadership.
He said that he's also familiar with multiple captains having used that system for most of his time at the Sydney Swans.
Melbourne had co-captains Jack Grimes and Jack Trengove in 2012 and 2013. They were appointed under Mark Neeld, a decision that caused much discussion.
Trengove – who was the youngest captain in the game's history when he was appointed aged 20 – has already told Roos he is happy to step away from the leadership.
Grimes remains a candidate with Nathan Jones, who won the club's past two best and fairests and Colin Garland, who was runner-up in the best and fairest last year, also obvious candidates.
"For me it's just picking the right guys to lead the footy club," Roos said.
Roos said the process of selection would take time and there was no rush to get it done before the first NAB Cup game (against Richmond on February 14).
"The important thing is to get the behaviours bedded down and then give the players the chance to live those behaviours, before we start voting on leadership groups and that's what we'll try and do," Roos said.
"We'll try to give the players a chance to get in the leadership group and make a really critical assessment of who are the leaders of the club, not based on who was in the leadership group, who's a good bloke or who's been here the longest."
Roos was in no mood to make outlandish predictions about how the group might perform during the season. He said it was impossible to know until the players were in the heat of battle and he had a chance to see how players responded when a couple of goals were kicked against them.
"At this stage, I've been more than happy, but I don't think we're going to know enough about this group, until about the middle of next year, as to where it's going, how quickly it can get there or whether it can get there," Roos said.
