MELBOURNE co-captain James McDonald says his fiancée Anabel was happiest of all that the Demons secured their first win of the season. The 2006 All-Australian player had sworn off any sort of wedding planning until the side had won a game.

“We’ve started the wedding plans so she was a pretty happy girl last night,” McDonald laughed.

Equally pleased after yesterday’s huge comeback victory for the Dees, the second biggest in the history of the AFL, was 19-year-old forward Austin Wonaeamirri who booted four goals for the home side and whose celebrations certainly matched the jubilation of the MCG crowd who were there to witness the massive turnaround by the bottom of the table club.

“He’s been amazing. His attitude from when he first walked in the door. He’s been leading the team in forward pressure. He’s just a great kid, he’s got a great attitude and he’s very respectful and loves playing footy and loves kicking a goal, as you saw yesterday,” McDonald smiled.

As for the Demons’ much debated new game plan under Dean Bailey, although McDonald was reluctant to say that it was perfectly executed yesterday, he certainly believes the side are progressing with it.

“In that third quarter, for me personally, I don’t know what anyone else thinks, but we got back to within 20 points and I think we’re starting to show a few good little patterns of play,” he said.

“We’re still making steps but I think the last couple of weeks on the track we’ve been trying to execute it quite well. It’s a different thing when you’ve got an opposition putting pressure on you though. In the second half, [the boys] played a bit more instinctively and found a bit of flow.”

The 31-year-old says the key to the basement dwellers securing more victories is continued improvement of the playing group’s young members.

“Blokes like Austin Wonaeamirri, need to keep improving (as does) Cale Morton and those sort of blokes. Having Matthew Bate back in the side, was a big bonus for us and gave us a big target up forward. If those younger blokes can keep improving we should be heading in the right direction.”

Trailing by 51 points, 23 minutes into the second quarter, a comeback looked impossible. However, the dual best and fairest winner says self belief got the club back in the contest and over the line.

“We came in at half time and for some reason everyone still had good belief in each other and everyone was pretty vocal at half time. We just knew if we kept chipping away and chipping away, it would eventually turn.”

According to McDonald, another key to the club’s startling victory was noisy home support.

“With the crowd, there were only 20,000 there but they were pretty vocal in that last quarter and they played a big part in getting us up. It’s good that they stuck with us. We had the membership drive on Thursday night and I was a bit worried ringing some of the members about the abuse I was going to get but a lot of them are pretty positive and know where we’re at and know. We’re on the right track so they’ve been great.

“Hopefully we can learn from the weekend and we have turned a corner. As Dean always says you have to work hard on the track and that’s how you get better so that will be a big focus for us I think.”