COACH Paul Roos has hailed his side's harder edge after the Demons' 33-point win over Richmond at the MCG on Sunday night.
The win marked the first time Melbourne had won successive matches since rounds 13-14, 2011.
The Demons also kicked over 100 points for the third time in three weeks.
Roos credited new recruits including Tomas Bugg and Ben Kennedy for improving the team's competitive spirit.
"Heritier (Lumumba)'s a lot fitter this year than what he's been," Roos added.
"We're a bit better balanced as a football team."
The Demons repelled several Tiger charges, in particular as Richmond closed the gap to 16 points at the final change.
"We're probably still not quite getting the balance right, we're up and down a bit but that's the nature of when you try to bring an offensive game style in, you lose a bit of defence," Roos said.
"It's really pleasing that when we made mistakes and they kicked a couple of goals we steadied.
"The ability to recover from those mistakes we haven't seen over the last couple of years, so that's really pleasing."
Roos made special mention of ruckman Max Gawn, whose 18-disposal and 47-hit-out game was match-defining, as well as Jack Viney.
The tough midfielder had a club record 23 contested possessions, among his 38 total disposals.
"He sort of typifies where we're trying to take this team and the training that's been put into these guys over the last couple of years," Roos said.
"Jack's a really good student of the game. He loves footy and really works hard at his craft and so far he's had an exceptional season.
"His whole game was fantastic, but his last quarter – he just willed us, along with a lot of other guys, over the line."
Roos struggled through his post-game press conference after suffering a coughing fit.
However, the Demons coach regained himself to take a swipe at the stricter interpretation of the deliberate out-of-bounds rule in 2016.
"You're asking the umpires to be mind-readers. How can a bloke kick the ball out-of-bounds from 50m away in a pack, being swung around? It's just ridiculous.
"We're making it hard for umpires to umpire, we've got the crowd getting frustrated.
"It's frustrating because clearly half of them weren't deliberate. Everyone in the grandstand could see that."
Roos said it was still too early to say whether boom youngster Christian Petracca would make his way into the side for the game against St Kilda next Saturday, after a flurry of impressive performances at VFL level.
Petracca, who was an emergency for Sunday night's match, collected another 26 touches for the Casey Scorpions in their match against Williamstown on Saturday night.
"It's a short break for us, similar to St Kilda so the biggest thing for us is recovery and getting right for next week," Roos said.
"How the guys recover and how many spots will be up for grabs we'll wait until later in the week."
