New Melbourne president Glen Bartlett says Demons need more mongrel on and off the field

NEW Melbourne president Glen Bartlett says the Demons need "more mongrel" on and off the field and has promised a harder edge under his leadership.

Melbourne

NEW Melbourne president Glen Bartlett says the Demons need "more mongrel" on and off the field and has promised a harder edge under his leadership.

In his first president's address, Bartlett said he was tired of the Demons being the butt of jokes in the competition.

Bartlett, who was appointed as Melbourne's new president on Friday, laid out his vision for the club which included a ''football first'' philosophy, a solid and stable administration and continuous improvement.

He said Melbourne had a lot of work to do to improve its culture and needed to be ruthless in the way it went about turning the club's on and off-field fortunes around.

"Our culture is very, very important.  We clearly have a lot of work to do,'' Bartlett told the club's president's function before the Melbourne-Fremantle game at the MCG.

"What does Melbourne stand for? What are our values?

"Values that I personally stand for are respect, honesty, ruthlessness. We need a real harder edge and I believe we need some more mongrel on and off the field in the way we got about our business, but with respect.

"My vision for the club I think very much needs to be built around that we need to be respected. It doesn't just happen. There is a lot of work, make no mistake there is going to be actions. We need to become a powerhouse on and off the field.''

Bartlett, who was elected to the Melbourne board in July this year, said the Demons needed to build a culture where nothing other than winning would be accepted.

"I appreciate that some people might not like this but it's reality. There is a softer culture,'' Bartlett said.

"I have heard a lot of people say that we just want to be competitive, that was an honourable loss, the players tried hard.

"We need to build a culture for the future where nothing other than winning is acceptable.

"I am really tired of people making fun at Melbourne Football Club, feeling sorry for Melbourne, not respecting Melbourne.

"We need to build our own period of success and we need to be ruthless about the way that we go about it.''

Bartlett said the Demons had the best man in place as chief executive, Peter Jackson, to take the club forward and it was critical the Demons also got the right man as senior coach.

"We have to get this right,'' Bartlett said.

"We won't simply react or jump into, we have to get it right, following a comprehensive process to appoint the best coach to take this club forward.

"We will let the panel do their work. I have got great faith in the panel that we've put together.

"We will interview the candidates and we look forward to receiving their recommendations. Obviously the sooner the better and it's critical we get this right. There are a number of appointments that will flow from getting that right.''