CO-CAPTAIN Jack Grimes says he was frustrated by his 2014 season and his performances haven’t sat well with him.

Speaking to Dee TV, the defender spoke openly about his year and his hamstring injury, which forced him to miss four of the final five matches.

“Personally, I was disappointed with the way it finished with the hammy, but overall I was pretty disappointed with my year,” he said.

“I felt like I didn’t play enough consistent footy. We talk a lot about ‘playing your role’ and I didn’t feel like I did that consistently enough, especially as a leader of the club.

“I need to be leading the way in that regard and I don’t think I did enough of the time, so I’ve definitely got a lot I want to work on over the pre-season and the off-season. On a personal note, the season doesn’t sit comfortably with me at all.”

After finishing second to Nathan Jones in Melbourne’s best and fairest award in 2012, Grimes has had a tougher past two seasons with injury and form, as he explained.

“This year I didn’t think there were enough of the better games. I didn’t think I played really poor footy. I just didn’t think I played really good footy enough of the time, so that’s the see-saw and the challenge I’m battling with,” he said.

“Everyone gets frustrated when they’re not playing the footy that they’d like to.

“The way we finished the season – we were frustrated as a group. It was unfortunate that it wasn’t as easy as clicking your fingers … and all of a sudden becoming confident. You have to build it … and that’s what we’ll be aiming for over the pre-season.”

Completing his third season as a co-captain, Grimes said coach Paul Roos had given him and first-year skipper Nathan Jones “a new perspective” on leadership.

“We were definitely challenged at times, because overall as we saw with the season, there were ups and downs and there were times when we started to play some really good footy,” he said.

“In the back end of the year, we really weren’t happy with the footy we were playing and it really doesn’t sit well with us. Us leaders were being challenged – as we should be – because we’re leading the club and we need to be setting the right example on game day.

“We didn’t feel like we did enough late in the season and that’s the challenge for us – to keep moving forward.”

Grimes said he felt he was now a better leader after a season under Roos’ guidance.

“Roosy and the coaches have made it pretty clear that there is nothing more powerful than a strong leadership group. It really stands up, when the team needs it,” he said.

“It’s not doing the miraculous things. It’s just playing their role and doing their bit.

“Overall, there is a great experience in being a co-captain and this year I felt like I learnt more this year than any other year – on a personal level and for the team. I really enjoyed it and after finishing the season, I’m a much better leader than what I was at the start of the year. I’d imagine Jonesy and the other leaders are too.” 

Grimes was adamant he wants to keep the co-captaincy role and continue sharing it with Nathan Jones in 2015.

“I’d love to. I’m not at the level as a player that I see myself wanting to get to,” he said.

“I’m not even close and I feel the same as a leader and as a co-captain too – I feel I have a lot more to give.

“I feel like I’m learning a lot year-to-year and I’ve got a very different picture of what leader I’ll be down the track. I want to keep striving to get there and I want to keep the opportunity and hopefully they’re backing me again.”

Looking ahead to 2015, Grimes said he couldn’t wait for his second season under Roos, as he was adamant the club was now on the right path.

“The way we finished the year doesn’t sit well with the group and the coaches. We feel like we’ve made some real gains as a footy club this year,” he said.

“We were pretty happy with the way things were tracking, but for whatever reason we started to go away from the way we were playing earlier in the year. We had some really bad losses late in the year that weren’t good enough.

“You look back at the season and say ‘we won four games – have we really made that much in roads?’ But I think in general, the way we began to play reasonably consistently in the first half of the year – you could see we were in games a lot more and we were a lot more competitive and teams weren’t blowing us out of the water.”