COACH Paul Roos says Melbourne plans to be “pretty active” in next month’s trade period.

Roos said the club was determined to improve its list over the off-season and he had been upfront with the players about the notion that no Melbourne player was untouchable.  

“I’ve said to the players – because there is going to be a lot of rumours floating around over the next four or five weeks – that every player is tradable,” he told Dee TV.  

“But [I’ve told the players] ‘if you hear a rumour, just pick up the phone and give me a call or give Josh [Mahoney] a call or give Todd Viney a call.

“My mandate is to make the club better and improve our list and we did that last year and we need to do it again in the off-season.”

Roos said it was a matter of getting through the free agency and trade period before a definitive number of delistings were made.

“I think a lot of it is getting through the trade week and just seeing what you end up in the trade week,” he said.

“I don’t think we want to end up bringing in another seven or eight young kids – the Melbourne fans have seen that. We’d like to get some real high quality kids like we did last year.

“We felt we did really well going into the draft last year and did really well in trade week, so I think it’s going to be mixture of hopefully experienced players again and young kids.

“It’s hard to say absolutely until we get through trade week, in terms of numbers, but I think there will be a significant change to the list.”

But Roos said the potential to recruit players with AFL experience again – a la Daniel Cross, Bernie Vince and Dom Tyson last year – was a priority. 

“I think so. I think Melbourne fans and maybe St Kilda fans can talk about a couple of years rebuilding because they’ve been in a couple of grand finals and my responsibility is to clean up the six or seven years [at Melbourne],” he said.

“I don’t think Melbourne fans are going to cop rebuilding again – even though they know where we’re at.

“I’d like to bring in a couple more experienced players and add to our squad and hopefully jump up the win/loss column – no question about that.”

Roos said the deal to exchange pick No.2 (Josh Kelly) to GWS, which ultimately secured Dom Tyson and Christian Salem was the type of trade, which would again be considered. 

“My view is that all of your players are tradable and all of your picks are tradable. Last year, we did very, very well out of it with Dom and Christian,” he said.

“Josh is going to be a really good player for the Giants, so I think if you’re getting clubs that are sensible and know what they want, we’re happy to enter into dialogue.

“We want it to be a high quality player like Dom’s turned out to be, but we’re certainly open to talking to clubs about any picks and any players that they might be interested in – and also if they’ve got players that they think we might be interested in.”

Roos said last week’s exit interviews with players were always tough, with Daniel Nicholson and Mitch Clisby the first Demons to be delisted.

“It’s always a hard week to let players go – first and foremost,” he said.

“It’s a really, really difficult part of the job and probably the worst part of the job is doing that.

“Also, the hardest part is getting players out – you’re in such a hurry getting the medicals and doing the welfare and player interviews. So it’s a pretty hectic week on top of the best and fairest and then getting players out for their off-season break.”

Roos said the club still didn’t have a definitive answer on whether key defender/forward James Frawley was set to stay or leave via free agency.

“We’re not at this stage [any clearer],” he said.

“We had the exit interview with James and we talked purely footy.

“I think he knows we want him to stay – he’s very much a required player. Equally, we understand it’s the age of free agency and it’s just a new era and we’ve seen that with a number of players over the last two or three years.”

Roos said if Frawley did leave Melbourne, the club would expect some decent compensation.

“It depends on length of contract and those things, but hopefully if he does leave, we get pick three. That’s probably what everyone is saying in the media and everyone from other clubs even sees that as a fair compensation,” he said.

“If that does happen and we do get pick two and three, hopefully we can continue to make the club better.”