IT'S TIME for Melbourne to write its own storyline according to the Demons' new senior coach Simon Goodwin.
The 39-year-old, who played in two premierships in 275 games with Adelaide, officially took the reins on Wednesday after two seasons as Paul Roos' understudy.
With a promising young list and 10 wins in 2016, expectations are high but Goodwin said success was far from guaranteed.
"Improvement won't just happen though. It's not lineal," Goodwin said.
"The game demands more … talent won't be enough. We have to unconditionally ingrain our winning behaviours in this footy club."
Goodwin said the mateship among the Melbourne players was a feature of the team he was now leading.
"These players are devoted to doing something really special and I certainly want to be a part of it," Goodwin said.
Goodwin said today was both a starting point and a continuation for the club.
He said the club had regained respect and now performance needed to be taken to a new level.
Goodwin has a reputation for building strong relationships with players to allow him to work with them to improve.
"We have got an incredible young group," Goodwin said.
"I'm just eager to get into it. I've got an energy to continually improve."
He also said he was confident of retaining young key forward Jesse Hogan, who is contracted until the end of 2017.
The club is keen to extend Hogan's contract and are hopeful talks will resume after they were put on hold until the end of this season.
"Jesse's management and the club said that they would look at it at the end of the year. We are now at the end of the year," Goodwin said.
"One thing I do know about Jesse is he loves his teammates, he loves playing with this club and I have got a really strong relationship with Jesse.
"Our focus is to make Jesse the best player. He still has 12 months to go in his contract and I know we are going to work really hard to retain Jesse and we are really confident that he wants to be a part of Melbourne."