CO-CAPTAIN Nathan Jones has labeled Melbourne’s dramatic one-point win against Essendon at the MCG on Sunday night as one of the best he’s been involved with at the club.
Jones couldn’t hide the smile from his face when he reflected on his side’s remarkable come-from-behind win – after the Demons trailed by 33 points at the three-minute mark of the third term.
“It’s definitely one of the better wins I’ve been involved in. Credit to Essendon – they smashed us in the first half. Unfortunately [for Essendon], they weren’t as far ahead as they could’ve been. We had to assess where we were at, at half-time, and we weren’t bringing what we wanted,” he told Dee TV.
“I felt the momentum change in the third quarter and we started to get on top, particularly in the last 10 minutes. That was real character and real resilience in our group because we needed to fight it and we could’ve rolled over.
“We really wanted to put in a good performance – we were disappointed with [our performance] against Collingwood last week. We got out of jail and stole it, but we’ll take it and we’re not giving the four points back. But credit to the boys for the fight and the effort that we ended up putting in … to get away with a win.”
Jones said the Demons played “so far from our best footy” in the first half that significant changes had to be made.
“We could barely get it on our terms in the first half and we cleaned things up and continued to persist. We made some changes and we really took hold of that and we capitalised on our opportunities – and we got away with it.
“They’re the good ones. They really test the character of the group and I’m confident we’ve taken a couple of more steps forward, although we’ll review where we’ve got to get better at the start of the game.
“The boys were pretty happy and the coach was pretty happy that we got the four points.”
Jones said he was proud his team remained focused in the final term and didn’t get caught up in the emotion of the situation.
“It’s tough. We talk about it – particularly with our leaders. You’ve got to try and stay cool in the heat of the battle and the perfect example was Crossy (Daniel Cross), who could’ve blazed and had a shot, but he [showed] a huge amount of composure. He hits Christian [Salem], who goes back and kicks an easy goal. It’s what makes great teams,” he said.
“I think that’s one of the main things tonight – we had a lot of guys stand up and be cool in a crisis and you make good decisions in the heat of the battle and when the pressure’s on.
“More often than not – coupled with effort – we’ll get the result and we found that in the second half. When we get the game on our terms and how we want to play it – we can get the result.”
Still, Jones said the Demons had to be modest in the win, given they trailed by almost six goals at one point.
“It’s a good one, but I have to be pretty humble, because I feel like we’ve got out of jail and we really want to accept that win as a good one, but at the same time we’ve still got a long way to go,” he said.
