HOW DO you teach an AFL team to win again?

Slowly and carefully, according to Melbourne coach Paul Roos.

Roos is masterminding a step-by-step recovery mission at Melbourne, which so far is bearing fruit.

With three victories from nine matches under Roos, the Demons have already bettered their 2012 wins tally just two months into the season.

Roos - along with chief executive Peter Jackson - has focussed on changing the culture at Melbourne.

In his words, it's about transforming a team that used to worry about being competitive and now can concern itself with winning.

"Culture is all about people, if you get good people in good positions," Roos told SEN radio.

"Then it's about setting standards for the players and hopefully they set them for themselves as well."


Roos said earlier his Demons project would start at the very basics and build up and he has been true to his word.

His first task was stopping the bleeding.

"From where we've come from, you can't go in and roll out the whole game-plan because you tend to confuse players," he said.

"You try and get one part of it right and then you move on to the next part.

"We had to run defensively a lot better than what they've done in the past to try and stop teams scoring.

"So we've worked really hard on transition and running - just game running which the players haven't been great on in the past.

"We'll continue to add things over the next 12-13 weeks of the season."

The Swans' drought-breaking premiership coach said bonding with players in the off-season allowed him to "have the hard discussions" about poor performance when he needed to.

But those chats should be happening less often, particularly after their win against Richmond on Saturday which he called their best of the season.

"You can argue Adelaide in Adelaide is a harder win but I felt we had better players across the board on the weekend against a team that last year played finals and obviously had a lot to play for," he said.

As for his own future, he said the ball remained in the club's court.

Roos is contracted for two years, with an option for a third.

"At the moment everyone at the football club is clear on what's happening. The succession plan will happen, whether it's two years or three years.

"If (the club) say 'Roosy we need to know in the next half an hour or the next three weeks' ... I don't have a problem letting them know."