Paul Roos (Australian rules footballer)


Paul Roos is a former Australian rules footballer and senior coach in the Australian Football League. Roos represented and during the 1980s and 1990s. Roos was the senior coach of the Sydney Swans and Melbourne Football Club from 2002 to 2010 and 2014 to 2016 respectively.
A versatile key position player, Roos was a strong mark who was excellent at ground level, and in his prime was rated the best footballer in Australia. He was one of Fitzroy's finest players in its final years, and was named at centre half back in Fitzroy's Team of the Century. In his 17 seasons of League football, he was only reported once, for abusive language, and was found not guilty.
Roos was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 2005. He has won many accolades throughout his career: he was named All-Australian seven times; received the league's most valuable player award; and represented Victoria on 14 occasions in State of Origin. He is also the AFL/VFL record holder for the number of games played wearing the number 1 jumper – which he wore throughout his 356-game career at both Fitzroy and Sydney.
After finishing as a player, Roos went on to become a successful coach at Sydney, guiding the Swans to the 2005 Premiership, their first in 72 seasons.

Early life

Roos grew up in the Melbourne suburb of Donvale and played junior football with Beverley Hills Football Club in Doncaster East. He attended Donvale High School from 1975 until 1981. As Beverley Hills was in 's recruiting zone, Roos was selected to play for Fitzroy in their Under 19's team.

Playing career

Fitzroy

Roos made his senior VFL debut for in Round 4 of the 1982 season against, the club he would eventually move to 13 years later. Also making his debut along with Roos was 16-year-old Gary Pert, who became one of Roos' best teammates. In Round 9, he was named at full-forward against and kicked seven goals in a 47-point win.
In 1986, Roos polled a career high 16 votes in the Brownlow Medal to finish runner-up. He ended his career with 121 Brownlow votes.
Roos was appointed captain of Fitzroy in 1988, and led the club in 122 games until 1994.
During his playing career at Fitzroy, Roos was selected as an All-Australian in 1985, 1987, 1988, 1991 and 1992. He also represented Victoria in State of Origin as captain.
Roos left Fitzroy at the end of 1994 to join Sydney. He cited financial difficulty, the departure of key players and the club's relocation to the Western Oval as the main reasons for moving to Sydney.

Sydney

Roos joined in 1995 on a three-year contract. He finished his career at the Sydney Swans with 87 games and 19 goals in 1998. While Roos was at the Swans, he was one of Sydney's best in the 1996 AFL Grand Final loss to North Melbourne. He again qualified as an All-Australian in 1996 and 1997.
In his playing days, he was often cheered by supporters with a distinctive, deep rolling roar of "ROOOOOOS!".

Statistics

Playing statistics

Led the league after season and finals

! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1982
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1983
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1984
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1985
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1986
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1987
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1988
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1989
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1990
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1991
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1992
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1993
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1994
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1995
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1996
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1997
! scope="row" style="text-align:center" | 1998
! colspan=3| Career
! 356
! 289
! 216
! 4588
! 2409
! 6997
! 2140
! 262
! 0.8
! 0.6
! 12.9
! 6.8
! 19.7
! 6.0
! 1.0

Coaching statistics

! scope="row" style="text-align:center; font-weight:normal" | 2002
! scope="row" style="text-align:center; font-weight:normal" | 2003
! scope="row" style="text-align:center; font-weight:normal" | 2004
! scope="row" style="text-align:center; font-weight:normal" | 2005
! scope="row" style="text-align:center; font-weight:normal" | 2006
! scope="row" style="text-align:center; font-weight:normal" | 2007
! scope="row" style="text-align:center; font-weight:normal" | 2008
! scope="row" style="text-align:center; font-weight:normal" | 2009
! scope="row" style="text-align:center; font-weight:normal" | 2010
! scope="row" style="text-align:center; font-weight:normal" | 2014
! scope="row" style="text-align:center; font-weight:normal" | 2015
! scope="row" style="text-align:center; font-weight:normal" | 2016
! colspan=2| Career totals
! 268
! 137
! 129
! 2
! 51.5%
! colspan=2|

Honours and achievements

Playing honours

Teams
Individual
Teams
Individual

United States

When his career ended, Roos spent some time in the United States and coached the national side to victory over Canada. He is often credited as one of the key people in the success of the fledgling United States Australian Football League, establishing networks with key people in the country.

Sydney Swans

Returning to Australia and the Swans, Roos then became an assistant coach to Rodney Eade. Part-way through the 2002 season, with the Swans' record becoming worse by the week, Eade resigned. The club administration started the search for a new coach and it is widely believed that negotiations with Terry Wallace were at an advanced stage. Nevertheless, when Eade finally went with several games of the minor round still to be played, Roos was appointed caretaker coach for the remainder of the 2002 season, a move hugely popular with Swans fans, who remembered his great contribution to the club as a player.
As caretaker coach, Roos immediately transformed the dispirited Swans players. Several who had struggled under Eade blossomed under his leadership. Surprisingly, the Swans won most of their remaining games that year, and the fans soon let it be known who they wanted as coach by reviving the famous "Roooos" call. Despite this, the club administration continued their talks with Wallace. Finally however, they were unable to ignore the players' own support for Roos, when, after a win late in the season, all the players surrounded Roos on the field and, unprecedentedly, themselves joined in the "Roooos" call. The administrators knew when they were beaten, and appointed Roos coach for the 2003 season.
Under Roos' coaching, Sydney participated in every finals series between 2003 and 2008. They made it to the preliminary final stage in 2003, the semi-final stage in 2004, won the Premiership in 2005 and almost retained it in 2006, losing the Grand Final by only one point, and then got eliminated in the first week of the 2007 finals. They made it to the second week of the 2008 finals. But 2009 was the second time under Roos' leadership that they didn't make the finals.
Roos also implemented a policy of giving up first round draft picks in exchange for players from other clubs: namely, Darren Jolly, Ted Richards, Peter Everitt, Martin Mattner, Rhyce Shaw and Shane Mumford in the years 2004-2009 inclusive. all of whom earned more game-time than they did at their original clubs; this policy paying off for Paul Roos.

2005

In 2005, Roos' coaching style was criticised by AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou, who referred to the Swans' defensive and negative style of play. Demetriou even went so far as to claim that the Swans would never win a premiership playing such an unattractive style of football. As a result of Demetriou's criticisms, the Swans were labeled by the media, especially in Melbourne, as the ugly ducklings.
Roos and his Swans were criticised for their game plan in a match against in mid-2005. This led to the media, led by Andrew Demetriou and the Network Ten commentary team, led by Stephen Quartermain, Tim Lane and Robert Walls describing their game plan as "disgusting" and "ugly". The Swans misbehaved during the match, and lost the match 15.11 - 8.10, a result which proved to be the turning point in the Swans' season, only losing three more matches for the rest of the year. Roos and the Swans would however have the last laugh as they defeated the Saints in the preliminary final with a 15.6 - 9.11 win, denying them a shot at their second premiership. Coincidentally, in the Grand Final, they would also kick 8.10, this time defeating the West Coast Eagles which scored 7.12.
Roos proved his critics wrong by leading the Swans to their first premiership in 72 years, with a hard-fought win against the West Coast Eagles in the most thrilling Grand Final for a number of years. Many believe that the AFL's change of rules for the 2006 season was in direct response to the Swans' style of play, but this was later denied by the AFL.

2006

In the 2006 pre-season, Roos briefly returned to the US with his Swans side for an exhibition match against the Kangaroos at UCLA, and suggested that this should become an annual event.
Things became serious when the Swans lost at home to the rampant Adelaide Crows by 39 points, 15.11 to 8.14. Roos cited a lack of hunger and even went so far as to say that his team was "clearly incapable of winning the premiership", but it managed to reach the Grand Final against the West Coast Eagles, losing by one point.

2007

In Round 12, Sydney faced, and lost in a game that Roos described as the worst game he had ever coached in his five-year stint at the Swans. He responded by dropping star forward Barry Hall, who had been struggling with injury.
Roos also accused of tanking to gain a third successive priority draft pick when the Blues lost its final 11 matches of the regular season, most by lopsided margins. This included a 62-point pasting from Roos' Swans in Round 15, the penultimate round before Pagan was sacked.

2008

In early 2008 Roos was alleged to have been in the centre of a match-fixing controversy involving wingman Jarrad McVeigh. His alleged instructions to McVeigh was to "go forward, just don't kick a goal" during the final stages of the Swans' NAB Cup match against, which the Swans lost by two points. Roos was cleared of any wrongdoing by the AFL one month later, as it turned out to be a joke regarding McVeigh's poor accuracy during the 2007 AFL season.
He also coached from the bench in the first match of the 2008 season in which his Swans were beaten by St Kilda in a tight match.
In 2008 the Swans made the finals in 6th position and then made a terrific 35 point come-from-behind win against the North Melbourne Kangroos in the elimination final.

2009

2009 turned out to be Roos' worst ever season at the Swans, and the Swans' worst season since 1995, when it failed to make the finals, winning only eight games and finishing in 12th position. At the end of the 2009 season Roos announced that he would retire and step down as Sydney coach at the end of the 2010 season.

2010

Roos coached out the 2010 AFL season where the Sydney Swans returned to the finals after last year's absence from the finals. They defeated by five points in its home elimination final but the following week were eliminated by the in the second week of the finals by the same margin. He retired at the end of the season and was replaced by assistant John Longmire in a succession plan. In all he coached 202 games for Sydney, including 16 finals, 9 of which were won.

Melbourne Demons

On 6 September 2013, Roos was appointed senior coach of the Melbourne Football Club on a two-year contract, with the option of a third year. On 28 July 2014, Roos signed on for the third year.
He has been accredited for helping the Demons improve their fortunes on the field; the club won four games for the season, doubling their total tally from last season, and its percentage improved from 54.07% in 2013 to 68.04% in 2014. He also delivered on the promise of the club being "the hardest to play against", a pledge originally made by former coach Mark Neeld. However, in Round 21, Roos and the Demons came under fire after suffering a 64-point defeat to an injury-hit side which could only operate a one-man bench in the entire second half.

Media work

After retiring from coaching at AFL level, Roos was appointed head coach of the QBE Sydney Swans Academy, he is the main leader of the academy which has over 300 players. In addition, he had several football-related media roles, including writing for the Herald Sun and doing match day analysis for Fox Footy. He also hosted On the Couch on Fox Footy alongside Gerard Healy and Mike Sheahan between 2011 and 2013. Following his tenure as Melbourne coach, in November 2016 Roos joined radio station Triple M in a special comments role as well as returning to Fox Footy as an expert commentator both positions he retains.
Prior to being appointed as the senior coach of the Melbourne Demons in 2013, Roos was reluctant to coach another club after leaving the Sydney Swans. Despite informal inquiries from other clubs like,,,,, and the Brisbane Lions, Roos had repeatedly insisted he has no intention of coaching another AFL club
Roos was critical of the substitute rule which was introduced by the AFL in 2011, claiming that the rule, which aimed to lessen injuries resulting from collisions, could have the opposite effect of forcing injured players to stay on the field:
The thing that concerns me the most is you can interchange a guy in the third quarter so he comes off, can't come back on again, and you get an injury in the last quarter of the game and you've got a healthy player sitting on the bench doing nothing and an unhealthy player still in your rotations. That really, really concerns me.

Personal life

In 1992, Roos married American native Tami Hardy, a meditation teacher from San Diego. They have two sons, Dylan and Tyler, the latter of whom appeared on The Amazing Race Australia in 2019.
In September 2003, Roos ruptured his Achilles tendon during a game of social basketball, and was seen on crutches during the Swans' famous qualifying final win over Port Adelaide at AAMI Stadium the following weekend.
In 2008 he was named Australian Father of the Year in recognition of his ability to balance the needs of his family with the responsibilities of managing a high-profile sports team.