Kangaroos coach Dean Laidley and his former teammate Wayne Carey reached a tentative truce on Channel Nine’s Footy Classified last night.

Laidley also underlined the club’s aim to thrive rather than survive, emphasising the long-term focus on the Roos’ list despite Laidley himself being in the final year of a contract.

On the show Carey promised not to publicly criticise Laidley again and Laidley expressed hope that they could repair their relationship, although neither backed down from their comments over the past few weeks.

"It's a little bit disappointing, but for 100 years these things have happened in a footy club, the club legend comes out and has an opinion," Laidley said.

"It's lucky I've got a thick skin. One mistake was falling into Wayne's comments the first time.”

For his part, Carey said he would continue to give opinions about the Kangaroos in his role as a media commentator.

"There will be no further comments about Dean Laidley, but there will be further comments about the Kangaroos," he said.

But Laidley countered that Carey should have spoken to him before making a strongly-worded statement last month about the state of the club.

The coach also made it clear he thought Carey had been outspoken at least partly to satisfy his requirements as a media commentator.

"It's not irreparable, I've got great respect for the man, for what he's done for the footy club," Laidley said.

"But I just thought that the timing, what we'd been through, our pre-season had been so good, it would have been great for Wayne to ring up and say 'what's going on at the football club, what track are you going (down)?'.

"Obviously he's got a few new media (deals) and that sort of stuff."

Carey said he had "nothing against Dean", but added he was worried about the future of the club.

He also conceded the timing of his initial comments was not ideal, only a few days before the season started.

"I have conceded the timing wasn't correct, (but) I stand by what I said," he said.

"I want the Kangaroos to be around for the next 100 years.”

Laidley pointed to the Arden St redevelopment and the Gold Coast opportunity as key steps to ensure the long-term viability of the Melbourne-based club.

He also addressed the issue of player development. The Roos have had the second most draft picks in the competition since 2000, but the third worst retention rate.

Laidley said the club had made necessary sacrifices in order to improve its ability develop young players.

"I drew a line in the sand halfway through last year. We've had all these kids, but they haven't come on because we haven't had the infrastructure or the resources."

"So what we've done… is [make do with] less assistant coaches this year and put three or four people into recruiting, development and welfare to make sure we thrive rather than survive."