Melbourne coach Paul Roos says Demons open to trading compensation pick for James Frawley

MELBOURNE coach Paul Roos has confirmed the club wants pick No. 3 as free agency compensation for departing full-back James Frawley.

AFL Round 19- Melbourne v Brisbane Lions at Etihad Stadium. Coach Paul Roos.. 3rd August 2014. Picture : Colleen Petch

MELBOURNE coach Paul Roos has confirmed the club wants pick No. 3 as free agency compensation for departing full-back James Frawley.

But the selection is unlikely to stay in the club’s keeping for long, with Roos saying it was open to trading any of its draft picks for a ready-made quality senior player.

MELBOURNE 2014 REPORT CARD

Frawley is favoured to land at Geelong on a five-year deal worth in the vicinity of $500,000 a season.

The Herald Sun revealed the Demons were eyeing Greater Western Sydney backman Sam Frost as a Frawley replacement.

The futures of Demons Jack Watts, Jimmy Toumpas and Jack Trengove among others are up in the air as Melbourne plots “significant changes to its list” after another year in the bottom reaches of the ladder.

Melbourne's James Frawley after the loss to GWS. Pic: George Salpigtidis.

The Demons traded pick No. 2 for Dom Tyson and pick No. 9 last year and Roos said the club would attempt another similar deal next month to bring in another “high quality player”.

Roos said the widespread expectation that Melbourne would receive pick No. 3 in exchange for Frawley was fair.

“It depends on length of contract and those things, but hopefully if he does leave, we get pick three,” Roos said.

“That’s probably what everyone is saying in the media and everyone from other clubs even sees that as a fair compensation.

“If that does happen and we do get pick two and three, hopefully we can continue to make the club better.”

Roos was adamant Melbourne improved this year despite concerns some of its players were still carrying mental scars from their poorly performed past.

Sam Frost spoils the ball away from Paul Chapman. Picture: Toby Zerna

He said the club would not go down a path of loading up on purely underage talent at this year’s draft.

“I don’t think Melbourne fans are going to cop rebuilding again — even though they know where we’re at,” Roos said.

The coach said every player was on the trade table, an attitude that served the club well in last year’s exchange period when it secured Tyson, who finished second in its best and fairest.

“My view is that all of your players are tradeable and all of your picks are tradeable. Last year, we did very, very well out of it with Dom and Christian (Salem),” he said.

“Josh (Kelly) is going to be a really good player for the Giants, so I think if you’re getting clubs that are sensible and know what they want, we’re happy to enter into dialogue.

“We want (this year’s trade target) it to be a high quality player like Dom’s turned out to be, but we’re certainly open to talking to clubs about any picks and any players that they might be interested in — and also if they’ve got players that they think we might be interested in.”

Originally published as Melbourne coach Paul Roos says Demons open to trading compensation pick for James Frawley