DASHING half-back Jayden Hunt says it was an honour to play in front of a crowd of 85,657 people on ANZAC Day Eve.

Although Melbourne went down to Richmond by 13 points in a nail-biting tussle at the MCG, Hunt said it was a privilege to be part of the occasion.

“Pre-game, the Light Horse, the Last Post and the national anthem – me and Jeffy [Garlett] are always the last out on the ground, so we just said to ourselves ‘let’s take it all in’,” he said.

“We still had 15 minutes before the game when we ran out, so I was just looking around at all of the lights and it was a really amazing experience.

“It was all for a great cause, because I’m a firm believer that the Anzacs did so much for this country and they should be honoured. This was just a small way of honouring them, so it was good to be a part of it.”  

Reflecting on Melbourne’s 13-point loss on Monday night, Hunt said it added to a frustrating three weeks, where his side had lost close contests. But he urged the Melbourne faithful to hang tight.

“It (wins) will definitely come. We’ve got a young team, but we want it to come now,” he said.

“It’s not good enough and we really should be winning these games, but we’ll review it and look ahead to next week.

“But, we want to win now.”

Hunt said the fact that Jake Spencer (AC joint/knee) and Tim Smith (rib/lung) were unable to play out the match, and Christian Petracca played on with an injured knee, was no excuse for the defeat.

“We did pretty well in the first three quarters, but like the last few weeks, we fell away in the last quarter. We can’t finish teams off at the moment, so we need to find a way to win,” he said.

“We needed a bit of composure again in the final term and we needed to play the attacking way we did in the first three quarters. We went a bit in our shell in the last quarter and it didn’t work and we gave up some easy goals.

“It was definitely no excuse for the lack of man power in the last term and we should’ve got the four points again.”

The 22-year-old continued his impressive season, winning 24 disposals, five inside 50s and four rebounds, but said he still had some areas of his game to work on.

“It wasn’t too bad. I thought I had a pretty good first quarter, but in the wet, I got a bit conservative, instead of flying for marks and spoiling it forward,” he said.

“In the last quarter, there were a few disposals I wasn’t too happy with, but overall it was a pretty solid game.

“There were just a few things I’ve got to improve on to round off my game.”