Former Melbourne coach Paul Roos is “not surprised” to see the Demons in a Grand Final, albeit a few years later than was originally anticipated.
Roos took the helm at Gosch’s Paddock in 2014 in order to steer the Melbourne Football Club out of obscurity and back into the limelight, before handing over the reins to Simon Goodwin at the end of the 2016 season.
Roos won four games in his first season, seven in his second and narrowly missed out on finals in 2016 with 11 wins. Now, the former coach is eagerly waiting for his project to realise its potential.
“It’s pretty exciting and it makes those early days worthwhile,” Roos told Sportsday.
“I think if you look at the journey and the three years that I was there and obviously ‘Goody’ (Simon Goodwin) was there for two, probably my goal was to get us up and around the (top) eight.
“I thought that if we could get to 11 (wins) and 11 (losses), which may have seemed a little unrealistic after taking over at two (wins), but we got to 10 and 12. I think the next year was another step forward and then the next year was a preliminary final.
“As we all know, football doesn’t work on a scale that keeps going up and up. You’ve got injuries and players that don’t have pre-seasons and then I think the challenges befell the club again.
“I’m not surprised as to where the club has got to. It’s probably taken a little bit longer only because of the hiccups.
“We all know that in order to get to this weekend you need a good run in pre-season and a good run of injuries and I’m just really excited it happened. It might’ve been a couple years later than everyone thought but there are reasons behind that.”
Roos has been present for the two most successful coaching handovers in recent memory, with John Longmire winning a Grand Final at Sydney and now Goodwin set to contest one on Saturday with Melbourne.
The champion coach was keen on a handover at Melbourne due to how long the rebuild could take.
“I knew the enormity of the task at Melbourne and I knew I just didn’t have the energy for the five to six year journey that they were potentially on,” Roos said.
“Having seen it work at Sydney and how successful it was with John (Longmire) winning the premiership in 2012, I knew it could work again. It was just about everyone committing to it.”