THE PIECES are slowly starting to come together for Melbourne, according to coach Simon Goodwin.
The Demons remain in a major hole that will take some serious digging to emerge from, but Goodwin said Saturday's second win of the season – against five losses – would provide "a little bit of nourishment".
The five-point win over Hawthorn was still stuffed with poor turnovers and questionable decision-making, something the coach acknowledged.
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However, Melbourne's dominance of contested possession returned (157-126), there was improvement in the team's defensive performance, and some key out-of-sorts players showed signs of life.
There was Tom McDonald's key contested mark in the third quarter, which set up a Jeff Garlett goal, and his overall increased output in the second half.
James Harmes' expert tagging job on Jaeger O'Meara, to go with his game-high 31 disposals, was back to "the James Harmes we know".
WATCH The last two minutes
Even Garlett, who found himself in the doghouse last year and had a poor moment early in the match, where he ignored McDonald to attempt a miracle goal, set-up the go-ahead major with a tackle.
"It's a step in the right direction," Goodwin told reporters.
"As I said last week, we saw some signs last week about getting back to what we really stand for as a club from a contest (and) defensive point of view.
"Obviously, when it's in such a tight game, in the situation – we were 1-5 – and I thought as a club, during the week we really looked at what we can do – not what we can't do.
"That's the staff and that's the players, and we started to really put some things together, but the pleasing thing for me is we've started to reestablish ourselves as what we want to play as.
"That's a contest, defensive-based team that works incredibly hard."
WATCH Simon Goodwin's full post-match media conference
Goodwin vigorously celebrated the victory on the sidelines with his players, explaining it was an emotional reaction to his side's poor start to the year.
"Our supporters have suffered over the last six weeks," he said.
"Our players have been working incredibly hard to turn this ship around and start playing some good footy – as has our staff.
"That's a little bit of nourishment and with that comes a lot of joy, so now we have to make sure we have a really positive week again and go again.
"But when you're 1-5 and win a tight one, there's going to be a bit of emotion."
Demons veteran Jordan Lewis had a difficult afternoon against his old side, in his third game back from a hamstring injury, but Goodwin steadfastly defended him again.
He admitted Lewis would want to play better but that he had "earned" the right to an extended period to regain form and urged people to "give him that respect".
Christian Petracca was another talking point post-game, after becoming unconscious in a professionally supervised hypoxic swimming session on Tuesday.
"He bounced up and ran into the players' lounge, as if nothing happened, Christian," Goodwin said of the incident.
"He does a lot of hypoxic swimming – it's something a lot of athletes do. It's something that's really well supervised by our high-performance staff and clearly he passed out.
"We're glad to still have him … but he needs to learn to take a breath when he's doing his hypoxy, let's put it that way."
Melbourne's focus now turns to Gold Coast at Metricon Stadium next Saturday evening, with Goodwin giving injured co-captain Jack Viney (AC joint) a "chance" of playing.
