COACH Paul Roos says he found the reaction to his appearance on Monday night’s AFL 360 program on Fox Footy “a little bit strange”.

Roos, who makes an appearance on the show each Monday night, said his comments that Melbourne was a “veil of negativity” were misconstrued. He stressed that was not the case when he spoke on his weekly Dee TV segment Roos’ Views on Wednesday.

“The club, as a whole, is fantastic. From [chairman] Glen [Bartlett] and [chief executive] Peter [Jackson] and the coaches and the board – it’s really positive for a club that’s been through so much,” he said.

“The point I was trying to make is that every club has this perception about themselves or people from the outside. From nine years of being a poor footy team, I do get more emails when we lose, and I understand why.”

Roos said he was optimistic that most Melbourne supporters were right behind the club.   

“Some people – and hopefully it’s a minority – almost wait for a loss, so they can pen a letter or email. We’ve got to do better and we understand that responsibility, but I think the club is in really good shape overall,” he said.

“We’ve got great sponsors, who are super supportive, and the majority of people who have been through a lot, are terrific.

“Even the response since Monday night, it’s been great from members and even some people who have been a little bit negative [now] understand the club’s in really good shape and going forward.

“But my responsibility now is to keep it moving forward and to make sure we address some other things in the off-season to make sure we win more games next year.”

Roos said he was not concerned by criticism and even pointed to when former AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou said the Swans would never win a premiership playing a negative style of football. As it turned out, his comments were made the same year Roos guided the Swans to their first flag in 72 years. 

“The second time around [as a coach], it’s a lot easier. I went through something similar when I was at Sydney mid-2005 and probably when you’re a young coach you take it more to heart,” he said.

“You understand sometimes people misinterpret what you say. I’m happy to correct that, whether it be Caroline Wilson’s article today (Wednesday), which was spot on, but I think Robbo is still a bit confused. But that’s OK, I’ll address that with him on Monday night [at AFL 360].

“Certainly from my point of view, the support has been outstanding. I used the Richmond analogy that Trent Cotchin got asked the question about a month ago, when they got beaten by Adelaide ‘oh, is it the same old thing?’

“I could tell what was going through Trent’s mind – ‘what do you mean?’ I used that analogy because [Richmond coach] Dimma (Damien Hardwick) hasn’t been responsible for the past 20 or 30 years and finishing ninth, ninth and ninth and nor has Trent.

“That’s still the thing, when I was coaching Sydney – it was ‘you’ll never win a premiership because it’s been 72 years’. So every team carries something – and ours is just that sometimes we don’t celebrate wins enough and we don’t look at improvement and I understand why it is. We’ve got to deal with it and make sure we keep getting better.”