ALTHOUGH he earned praise from coach Simon Goodwin post-match, key defender Sam Frost played down one of his best AFL performances against Hawthorn at the MCG on Sunday.

Frost, who provided plenty of run and spark out of defence, in Melbourne’s three-point loss, said his game had some mixed moments. 

“I was disappointed in my own slow start, which is something you don’t want to happen again. I felt my attacking side of my game was a lot more prominent – I ran off a lot more and got our ball movement going quite a bit,” he told melbournefc.com.au.

“I just went for it really. There was no method to it – I just thought I’d have a crack and take it on, as there was nothing to lose. I was disappointed with the start of my game, but I thought the way I responded and came back in the second half was something to take out of it.

“We played to a structure – match-ups are second – and it’s about who’s best suited and who’s in your area. We’re all quite comfortable playing on talls and smalls – our talls are versatile and so are our smalls – and we think they are quite brilliant at their contested side of the game.

“We’re all comfortable playing on whoever comes our way, and it makes it a lot easier. You can help each other out more.”

Frost said the loss was frustrating, given Melbourne got back to within one point late in the game.

“It was on the disappointing side to be honest,” he said.

“We get nothing out of a respective comeback loss – you still don’t get the points, so we’re still pretty disappointed in the start. That’s all that there is to it.

“If we had have had a better first quarter, we would’ve won the game. It’s as simple as that for us.”

Despite Melbourne’s sluggish start, when it trailed by 27 points at quarter-time and 29 points at half-time, Frost said Melbourne always had the belief that it could win from those positions.  

“I think it all came down to that slow start. It was really disappointing, because when we started playing the way we wanted to, things went our way,” he said.

“Despite being down, particularly in the first quarter, we were pretty confident at half-time that we could come back. We knew when we started playing our brand that we’d hold up and be all right.

“Until the very end, we thought we’d win the game. We had one last crack at it in the last minute and it didn’t come our way. It is frustrating, but throughout the whole game, we were calm and confident that we were a chance. We just needed to finish it off.”