Green booted five goals as the Demons won their fifth game of 2010, defeating Essendon by 19 points at the MCG on Sunday.
The victory means Melbourne is only 10 points behind eighth-placed Hawthorn with seven home-and-away games to play.
“We spent two-and-a-half years in the doldrums, we got our pants pulled down for two-and-a-half years, so it’s about getting respect back and earning some pride for this footy club,” Green said at recovery on Monday.
“We’re not standing for that anymore. We’re out there to win games.”
As for the prospect of making the top eight, Green said: “We’re not even talking about that.”
The win over the Bombers ended Melbourne’s mid-season slump, which had seen it tumble into the bottom four on the ladder.
“When you think about it, we probably only played good footy on the Queen’s Birthday [against Collingwood],” Green said.
“One win out of nine games it was, so we had a lot to play for yesterday and it was good to get over the line.”
Much to the chagrin of Essendon coach Matthew Knights, seven of the Demons’ 19 goals came after 50m penalties. However, Green doesn’t believe the umpiring played a role in deciding the outcome of the game.
“I haven’t seen the replays, but if they were there then they deserved to get paid,” he said.
“It’s a fine line with creeping over the mark and those types of things.
“But the rules have been there [for a long time] and you’ve just got to abide by them.”
Green also dismissed the notion that Melbourne has somewhat wasted the season given the Demons won three of their first five games.
“There’s no sense in that,” Green said.
“We’ve got a lot of positives with our young boys getting games into them, playing on good opposition, and experiencing wins like in Darwin [over Port Adelaide], so we’ve got a lot out of this season.”
The Demons travel to Perth this weekend for a Sunday meeting with Fremantle at Subiaco Oval, which Green admitted would be a "tough challenge".
“They’re coming off a loss to Richmond and they’re going to come out with all guns blazing, looking to stay in the top four," he said.
