AFTER just witnessing his biggest defeat as a senior coach in round two, 2014, Paul Roos walked to the rooms with his new band of assistants and established a starting point.
 
The football department would have to begin with teaching the players to try when facing adversity, he said, before they could even begin to instil a competitive style.
 
He then went to the post-game media conference and expressed his disbelief at what he had just witnessed.
 
"Some of the stuff today … guys missing chest marks. I haven't seen that before, so it's an eye-opener for me. Some of the errors were just incredible," Roos said.
 
Although he had said that each time persistent CEO Peter Jackson painted a worse picture of the club Roos' attraction to the job increased, the reality that day against West Coast was hard to take.
 
Roos was a winner, a premiership coach and a competitive beast that had never overseen a 93-point loss.
 
The following week Greater Western Sydney towelled up the Demons to record its fifth win in just 47 games.
 
At that point Roos hit the players between the eyes.



He told them the coaches would give them all the support in the world but if things did not change Melbourne would not win a game for the season. It was that simple. The team was not at AFL standard.

To that point he had done what he suggested he might do at his opening media conference. 

He had traded pick No.2 to add midfield depth, appointed Nathan Jones as co-captain with Jack Grimes, recruited coaches he could trust to deliver his message, retained Jack Watts and made improving percentage – which sat at 54 after 2013 – the indicator on which improvement could be measured.
 
Colin Sylvia had gone to Fremantle but he had managed to convince Bernie Vince and Daniel Cross to throw their lot in with the Demons.
 
He had started a search for a successor and told fans that by round six their defensive game-plan would be identifiable.
 
But progress was hard to see.
 
Where others gnashed teeth, Roos stayed outwardly calm.
 
In round four, Melbourne won its first game under Roos when it beat Carlton.
 
It was a start.
 
Just seven players from that day will front up against Geelong on Saturday when Roos ends being intimately involved in what he started.
 
Melbourne will attempt to end the season with a win, having just missed the finals but with a percentage of more than 100, a successor in Simon Goodwin to take over as coach and a bunch of talented under 23s comparable to other clubs.
 
In 2016, it has only once fielded a team with more games experience than its opposition.
 
Among the standing seven is skipper Nathan Jones, who debated with Roos for three years what a good game looked like but now understands it should not be measured by possessions.
 
And Watts, who worked closely with George Stone and Roos to develop into a third forward as good as any in the competition. First the coaches realised Watts played better when rotated on and off the ground, then they watched him blossom alongside Jesse Hogan.
 
And Dom Tyson, the coach's favourite if truth is told, who was able to develop without the burden of being at the club before Roos.
 
Max Gawn wasn't playing but he is now. Not only did the coach tell him to tone down his class clown schtick like others had before, but Roos matched him in the humour stakes, calling him Mr Invincible after the confident youngster said he felt invincible after one game.
 
Humour mixed with reality has been a feature of Roos' time, his stories famous among assistant coaches who recall many of them ending with the coach on a chair animated in the telling.
 
Sometimes that humour has been mixed with sarcasm like when he applauded Lynden Dunn after a tight loss for his wonderful barrel before delivering the punch: where is it in the game-plan, Dunny?
 
Or the incredulous look he can deliver that one player said can leave you feeling the dumbest footballer in the history of the game.
 
He hit talented youngster Jack Viney between the eyes when he thought he wasn't listening as much as he should and rode him hard.
 
But he played him on the half-forward flank with stints in the midfield in 2014 to spare him of the battering until his body was ready.
 
"Man management is his strength," an assistant told AFL.com.au.
 
"He's never forgotten what it is like when you are developing as an AFL player."
 
He was known to whistle and eat snakes when the opposite reaction was expected.
 
Although he publicly expressed the thought many Melbourne players were scarred from their previous experience, he also reminded them how good their job was too, putting a position description up of an AFL footballer that showed their hours, pay and some of the fringe benefits such as massages that came with the experience.
 
It was perspective that built the spirit. People wanted to be at the club. It was never doom or gloom.
 
Not everyone stayed. James Frawley went to play in a premiership at the Hawks and Jeremy Howe went to play up forward with Collingwood (and played in defence).
 
At times Roos' comments that he didn't understand the game's rules became tiresome and predictable.
 
But the Demons needed a coach who didn't sweat about the small stuff or worry about perceptions.
 
That came to the fore when Hogan missed a season with a bad back and Christian Petracca missed the next after a knee reconstruction.
 
The duo would learn and their football development would benefit in other ways was Roos' message.
 
He wasn't expecting much out of them in their first year anyway, he said.
 
This was foreign language for Melbourne supporters who had pinned their hopes on draft selections for years.
 
He made young players wait for their chance, keeping Petracca in the VFL even though outside momentum for his selection was building.
 
He changed his approach on how games were reviewed when a player told him he was tuning out in meetings.
 
And he never shirked from telling the players the truth.
 
Not only does everyone know the 53-year-old doesn't like it when people wear their caps backwards, but they know where their football sits.
 
Melbourne has a foundation in Viney, Gawn, Hogan, Petracca, Angus Brayshaw, Christian Salem, Jayden Hunt, the McDonald brothers, Sam Weideman and Dean Kent playing against the Cats with Clayton Oliver on the sidelines ready to go.
 
Respect has returned.