NATHAN Jones says his best individual AFL season was also the toughest he has experienced at the highest level.

Reflecting on his best and fairest winning 2013, when he won back to back Keith ‘Bluey’ Truscott Memorial Trophies, Jones said he was pleased to take his game to another level, but shattered with how his team fared.

“My gut feel would be that it (my season) was probably better than last year,” he told melbournefc.com.au.

“For a few reasons, I copped a fair bit more attention and I probably got tagged every week for the entire year in a struggling side, which was a bit of an obstacle I had to overcome … and also the whole situation of where we found ourselves as a team.

“I’d probably say I’m more satisfied with how I went this year than last, but it’s hard to judge your own personal stuff on such a disappointing year as a team.”

Despite his outstanding season, Jones said he felt drained last Christmas, and was concerned he may not be able to back up his first best and fairest season of 2012. 

“Everything I pride myself on – I was training too hard and I felt like I was overdoing it. I had foot trouble coming into pre-season, because of an overuse injury,” he said.

“I was running too much, but that’s all right. The good thing is that I recognised it and worked a way around it, and still had a pretty successful year this year.

“I don’t want to be in that spot again.”

But Jones said it was the most difficult of his eight seasons at Melbourne.

“This was the worst I’d been involved in. Just the weight of numbers, in terms of some of the defeats, were pretty demoralising,” he said.

“The rollercoaster of emotion a day or two after the game, when you’re down in the dumps and almost depressed to the point where you need to dig yourself out of the hole.

“But eventually, the ledger has got to turn and we’ve got to take advantage of those opportunities.”

Jones said being booed off the ground following Melbourne’s 148-point loss to Essendon in round two was “possibly the worst moment I’ve ever been involved in”.

“There was times within the 24 to 48 hours after that game [where I thought] ‘I don’t want to go back to the ‘G and play again’. But the courage of the group was there to face up to it [again] and yet we got beaten by 94 points,” he said.

“It’s such a huge amount of emotions that you have to pull together to get the group working … but I think we made some inroads towards the end of the year.

“I think the future is still really bright.”

Looking ahead to 2014, Jones said he couldn’t wait to play under new coach Paul Roos. He said meeting with Roos before he was officially announced as coach was an “awesome” experience.

“He brought up how we smashed Sydney a few years ago at the ‘G and he still remembered that day and he was trying to gather why it hadn’t continued,” Jones said.