MELBOURNE coach Dean Bailey says he is not going to set a timeframe on when the club will next compete in the finals.
Speaking at the Junction Oval on Friday, Bailey said the Demons need to get their foundation right before they launch another September assault.
"I think if you get too caught up with saying that in the fourth year or the fifth year or third year you'll play finals – we're really at a stage now where we are strongly reshaping the club," Bailey said.
"There has been a lot of changes through the club for the whole year, from an administration point of view, and at the end of the year we'll make changes again with our list. We need to get it into situation where we have better resources to train with.
"We'll have a more effective pre-season training schedule … and then when that happens, then we can actually look at setting some parameters.
"Our training program was very inefficient [last pre-season] because of the time and travel aspect of going to different venues – that doesn't help anyone get better, it actually hinders them."
Bailey said it was vital the club locked in its prospective training/playing venues with the Melbourne and Olympic Park Trust, Casey Fields and the Melbourne Cricket Club.
He said managing player injuries was also important.
"I know we've got less [player] operations this year and we've managed our players the best we can – even though we've got a lot of injuries and we've had a lot of collision injuries, which have been long-term … but you always want to get better at that," he said.
Bailey said a few of the club's youngsters have taken good steps through the season.
"If you look at the players who have been consistent for us this year, the majority of them have been young players from the start," Bailey said.
"We have generally gone along the line of focusing on trying to give experience to young players, even to the degree where a couple of our young players have probably got an extra game or two at the expense of a senior player – more so in the second half of the year."
Meanwhile, Bailey said talk of gaining the first pick in the NAB AFL Draft or priority selections was not his priority.
"I hope we win on Saturday. We've got Port Adelaide [in round 21] and I'd love to be able to beat Port Adelaide over there and then we play Richmond last – so I'm in the game to win and that's what we need to be in," Bailey said.
"If we're not good enough to win, then the outcome is that we get that [first] pick, but we've still got three games to go and I expect us to be competitive and win on Saturday and I expect us to go to AAMI [Stadium] and win next week.
"That makes it four [wins] and then we've got Richmond at the end and we'll be trying to win that game."