MIDFIELDER Bernie Vince says despite his recent run of good form, he’s still very much developing as a footballer.

In his second year at Melbourne, Vince has been a standout performer, consistently holding the opposition’s best midfielder while finding plenty of the ball himself.

But the former Crow said he had plenty of room for improvement.

“I feel like I’m still developing as a player, even though I’m an older player at this footy club,” he said on Friday.

“If you don’t think you’ve got improvement left in you, you should probably hang them up, so I think I’ve got improvement in me each year.

“The coaches have been really good for me this year – Simon Goodwin coming over has been great for me as well – and if you don’t think you’ve got any improvement in you, you’ve got to ask yourself the question I guess.”

Vince has played defensive roles on midfielders including Patrick Dangerfield, Scott Pendlebury and Trent Cotchin and last week capped off his head-to-head work on Pendlebury with three goals and 30 possessions of his own.

The South Australian said he was enjoying the accountability involved in the role.

“You need an accountable mid I think, there’s some absolute guns in other teams and if you give them too much leeway, they can really hurt you so I’ve just been matching up on some of the good players and trying to keep them accountable,” Vince said.

“I’m not really locking them down too much [like] taggers of the past [did] but just trying to keep them accountable and hurt them the other way the bit.”

With a strong North Melbourne midfield group facing the Demons this week, Vince said he wasn’t sure if he would be targeting a specific player.

“They’ve got some good midfielders – it’d [potentially] be a mix of [Andrew] Swallow, [Jack] Ziebell, [Nick] Dal Santo, they’ve got some good players,” he said.

“[Brent] Harvey’s probably a bit quick for me so I might leave him alone but it could be any number of them – or it might just be a midfield role.”

After finishing third in the Keith ‘Bluey’ Truscott Memorial Trophy in his first year at Melbourne, Vince has arguably taken his game to another level.

The midfielder has averaged 31 disposals and close to a goal per game over the past eight weeks, in form harking back to his 2009 season at Adelaide, when he won the club’s best and fairest.

But Vince said he preferred to focus on team success ahead of comparing his seasons.

“I don’t really like comparing years, I’m not sure what you base it on, whether you look at comparing the stats or influence or team success,” he said.

“At the end of the day I’d like us to be playing finals so until then I don’t really know how to compare [seasons].”