After more than eight seasons at the helm, Roos will hand the coaching reins to his long-time coaching colleague John Longmire at the end of 2010.
To that end, he oversaw an off-season rejuvenation of the playing list that brought 11 new players to the club, with all but one - Daniel Bradshaw - aged 25 or under. Significantly, seven of those have already played senior football.
Roos said the contributions of recruits Ben McGlynn, Josh Kennedy, Shane Mumford and Mark Seaby had given him as much satisfaction as any of his wins this year.
He also acknowledged the efforts of first-year players Lewis Jetta and Gary Rohan, while fellow youngsters Dan Hannebery, Nick Smith and Brett Meredith have continued to develop.
“The individual stuff… that’s the most important thing at the moment,” he said before training at the SCG on Thursday.
“Obviously winning games is paramount as well but you talk about the pride thing; the pride will come from watching the team play next year rather than worrying too much about this year.”
Roos said he had never been tempted to load the side with mature-aged players in order to eke out one last glorious run into the finals.
“I’m obviously looking to leave the club and to leave John a team that we can work with going into the compromised drafts, a team that we can be proud of over the next five to 10 years,” he said.
“That was my main goal at the end of last season and that remains the goal.”
While the Swans’ future looks brighter than it did 12 months ago, their immediate prospects aren’t as rosy as they follow their 73-point loss to Melbourne with a clash against Geelong at ANZ Stadium on Saturday night.
Roos, who will field an unchanged line-up against Geelong, said the key to challenging the Cats was simple.
“We’ve seen teams recover form by pressure and we’ve seen teams lose form by pressure,” he said.
“For us, it’s really trying to get our hands on the ball and if they get it first, trying to get it back off them as quickly as we can. We didn’t do it at all during [last week’s] game, which is certainly unusual for us.”
Swans midfielder Ryan O’Keefe’s assessment was even more blunt than that of his coach.
“It’s pretty simple. We can’t play any worse than we did last weekend,” he said
“We’ve just got to make sure we put in the effort and the effort was the most disappointing thing we all put out last Sunday.”
O’Keefe was one of several Swans who tried unsuccessfully to stop Cats star Gary Ablett during Geelong’s 67-point win at Skilled Stadium in round seven.
Despite the danger posed by Ablett, O’Keefe warned that the Cats’ midfield posed a multi-pronged challenge with Joel Selwood and Paul Chapman among the threats.
“There’s a whole heap of them you could run through that are crucial players,” he said.
“The strength of Geelong is that they’re so even and their bottom five players are as good as a lot of teams’ top five players. They’re a really strong team and you need an even contribution to give them a real good challenge and beat them.”
