WHEN Daniel Jones landed the AFL High Performance Manager role at the Dees he knew one thing for certain – that Steven King’s exciting brand of football was the perfect fit for him.

Jones was announced as Melbourne’s new AFL High Performance Manager at the start of October, arriving at the Dees with an elite performance background.

He’s worked across both AFL and the NBA, previously spending time at the Brooklyn Nets, North Melbourne and most recently Geelong.

His time at Geelong saw him connect with Demons AFL coach Steven King, who was a key draw card for Jones when considering the Melbourne position.

“I spent two years working with Kingy and it was a great couple of years,” Jones said.

“He’s a really good operator, a great human being and someone I was really keen to reconnect with when the job came up.

“[We’re hoping to] continue what Kingy has been able to build in that first 12 months as coach. It was a really exciting, fast brand of football, which definitely leads into my passion of speed and power in the game.

“Hopefully we can continue to marry that together and keep pushing forward with that really exciting style of football.”

Melbourne's AFL pre-season will kick off in a couple of weeks, with the first-to-fourth year Demons set to return a week prior to the remainder of the playing group.

Jones said he was eager to get started and bring his expertise in speed and power into the Dees pre-season

“[Fans can expect to see] a bit more high-speed running than what has been done in the past, and that's purely just the way football is going now,” Jones said. 

“I think the program that’s been in place has been phenomenal, and you could see that in the way in which Melbourne performed last year.

“It’s more about continuing what's been done, but hopefully we can see couple of players improving in their time trials, increasing their strength and first and foremost, improving their football.

“That’s what we're here as a performance group to do.”