He says that the challenge is to now to take his game up a notch, and he’s itching for the opportunity.
“I learned a heap of things - just personally how much, when I get confidence in my own ability, that I can perform consistently,” he told melbournefc.com.au.
“On the back of that, I was lucky that I’d put in my best pre-season, so that’s why I reckon my form was reasonably good throughout the year.
“So, I’m looking at hopefully having another big pre-season and getting back out there again next year.”
Along with co-captain Jack Grimes, Jones was a member of Melbourne’s leadership group for the second consecutive season.
He said his second year in the group was an invaluable experience.
“I’ve learned from a team perspective that we need all 22 blokes - or even the entire list - to be fit and to a standard that helps us play four full quarters. That, for the whole year, was part of the reason why we were in and out of games, and only played in patches.
“It was due to the level of the overall fitness of the team - that’s just where we’re at at the minute, but that’s what excites me, leading in towards pre-season.”
Despite a disappointing season, Jones said he saw genuine improvement across the playing group.
“I think as the year went on, we became a lot more competitive,” he said.
“We really started to implement some of the stuff that Neeldy wanted, but it was really just the consistency that hurt us.”
He was particularly pleased with the development of players such as speedster Sam Blease.
“It was good seeing some guys who put in some real hard work, like Bleasey, who was coming from a long way back,” Jones said.
“He didn’t have the greatest of pre-seasons, and was a fair way behind on his fitness levels. But how he performed later in the year - he put in a lot of work during the week, particularly earlier in the season, to really increase his fitness levels - the hard work paid off for him.
“He started to play some really good footy towards the back end of the season. I like seeing players like that, and that excited me. [Jack] Watts was in a similar boat - there was a six week period there before he got injured, where he played some really good footy. So, seeing those young guys improve, just through sheer hard work, is what excites me, and again, we need the consistency of that throughout pre-season, so we play like that for an entire year.”
Jones said that further improvement will come via the likes of Blease and Watts, plus several younger players in 2013.
“I think there’s a lot of talent on our list, but we didn’t have the work ethic ingrained into us as a group,” he said.
“If we can really develop that over the pre-season, there’s no reason why the improvement can’t come from the group that’s within.
“It’s going to take a lot of hard work, and at the moment, I’m just hoping that happens. But we’re really trying to drive it as a leadership group, and the expectation is that you get the job done. I’m just looking forward to seeing how guys really take on that challenge, because I think we can improve pretty quickly if everyone buys in.”
