Roos won't hold back Demons against Freo
UPDATE: Melbourne will pick their strongest available team to take on Fremantle in their NAB Challenge opener on Thursday, but coach Paul Roos will take a cautious approach to managing his players’ game time at Fremantle Oval.
Several new players will line up in Demons colours for the first time, including experienced recruits Heritier Lumumba (Collingwood) and Jeff Garlett (Carlton).
Ben Newton (Port Adelaide) and Sam Frost (GWS) will also play against the Dockers after crossing from rival clubs at the end of last year.
But young gun Jack Viney may not play after leaving the training track early with a leg injury today.
Viney appeared to indicate an issue with his left leg and walked laps of the oval before being driven away.
He will be assessed by Demons medical staff today.
Roos was excited about the prospect of taking on the Dockers.
“It’s a real opportunity for us to start playing and start implementing some things,” Roos said.
“We probably don’t have the luxury of a number of teams and obviously some have finished a lot later than we have (last year) as well.
“So for us it’s just picking the best team and getting it out there as soon as we can.”
Highly-rated youngster Jesse Hogan will play his first match for Melbourne in 12 months, having had his 2014 campaign ruined by a stress-related back injury.
“It’s always exciting when young kids start their career,” Roos said.
“I guess fortunately or unfortunately we’ve had early draft picks and they always seem to bring some hype.
“The fact that Jesse didn’t play last year is probably a blessing in disguise.
“His body’s a bit bigger and the bigs tend to take longer (to develop) as well.”
Roos will rotate players heavily off the bench against Fremantle before moving into a more familiar pattern against the Western Bulldogs and Essendon in the following weeks.
“Because you’ve got 26 (players) you can still manage game time in the first one, then you need to get your best team second and third week,” Roos said.
