NEWLY APPOINTED vice-captain Lynden Dunn says he feels he has “grown into a leader” over his 10-year career at Melbourne.

Dunn, who joined the leadership group during 2014, will support sole captain Nathan Jones in the role and said he was looking forward to guiding the club’s younger players in 2015.

“I think the challenge [of being a leader excites me the most], having played under some great leaders of our footy club, when I was a younger player,” Dunn told Dee TV.

“You learn a lot and sit back and at the time you think you know a fair bit yourself but it’s funny, you grow into the role and take responsibility for the playing group and the club.

“You really want to drive the message and show the younger boys, give them direction and help them with their careers, and really drive the message of the footy club and take this club back to where it should be.”

Drafted at No.15 in the 2004 AFL National Draft, Dunn spent his early years at the club playing as a forward and a tagger, before settling into a spot down back.

The move paid off in 2014, with the key defender having a career-best season, playing all 22 games and finishing fourth in the club best and fairest.

“I’ve bridged the gap between my poor games and my good games,” Dunn said.

“I’ve worked really hard on my game over the last three years since going down back and I think just the consistency in my performance [has improved].”

Jones and Dunn are joined in the leadership group by 2014 co-captain Jack Grimes, Chris Dawes, Daniel Cross and new recruit Heritier Lumumba.

Dunn said the combination of long-serving Demons and fresher faces in the group offered the ideal dynamic to help build relationships across the playing list.

“I think all the leaders are well-credentialled – Grimesy’s a past captain of the club and ‘H’ and Dawesy have been in a leadership group now for a couple of years – ‘H’ was at the Pies – and Crossy’s been around for a long time too,” Dunn said.

“We’ve got a lot of different personalities in the leadership group and I think we work well together.

“All the boys have appointed the leaders themselves and it’s been player driven and [now] we just need to live the trademark and really show the younger players what the footy club’s about.”

In terms of on-field results, Dunn said there was an emphasis on the club’s leaders to “drive game day performance” as Melbourne looks to improve on its four wins from last season.

“We just need to start winning more games of footy and we’re not putting a cap on the number of games we need to win or whether we’re going to play finals or not,” Dunn said.

“We’ve got a good group now, with a good mix of senior players with experience from other clubs and some good young players coming through.

“We just need to perform game day now and really start to build [our] performance week-to-week.”