The Kangaroos had toppled the highly-fancied Western Bulldogs to secure the club's third win on the trot, and Makepeace had played an integral role in a tight-knit defence with a performance he rates as his best for the season.
"Definitely, it would have to be my benchmark now for the season going forward in terms of what I expect from myself and what the coaches expect of me as well," Makepeace told kangaroos.com.au.
"I haven’t been too bad in a few of the other games, but certainly I was very happy with the one just gone by."
Immediately after the Bulldogs match, Makepeace felt that he'd fulfilled his brief to beat his man and provide some run off the half-back line, and he also felt that he'd made every possession count.
But he was surprised to learn the next day that he'd racked-up 24 disposals, the third-best match tally of his 136-game career.
"Hitting targets is something I pride myself on every time I go out and play and I'm disappointed if I don’t get that aspect of my game right," he said.
"But, to be honest I didn’t think I had that many touches when I got off the ground.
"It's not until you go through the video with the coaches the next day after the game was when I realised, so it was a bit of a surprise."
The 27-year-old, now in his seventh season at AFL level, is more than happy with his game at the moment, but he admits to being a bit unsettled at the start of the season.
After being a fixture in the Kangaroos defence for years and one of the first names penciled in each week, he found himself left out of the senior line-up for the first two rounds, and later for a three-week spell from rounds six-to-eight.
"It was really a hard situation for me because I hadn't been in that situation before and I don't think I handled it very well at the start," he said.
"I was probably a bit too negative on myself, but once I got my head around that and started to work in the right direction things slowly turned around and hopefully it can stay like that for the rest of the year.
"I got beaten by a couple of opponents early in the year and it might have cost the team a couple of costly goals. It was a real kick in the backside, you could say, and it’s something that I've taken on board and tried to work on over the last few weeks.
Makepeace concedes that to a certain extent, he took his place in the line-up for granted and found himself competing for a start with the likes of youngsters such as Josh Gibson and Daniel Pratt.
"Absolutely, and that was one of the things I struggled to get my head around at the start. When I look back on it, I've had a pretty, I wouldn’t say easy run, but I've had a good run in the fact that I haven’t missed many games," Makepeace said.
"Pratty has probably been in career-best form - he's one of our best defenders at the moment - and Gibbo, it's only his first year so he's in and out of the seniors, but he's very talented and a very capable player and once he gets a few games under his belt he'll definitely be a regular senior play and that, again, is going to put a lot more pressure on myself.
"I've just got to keep on performing the way the coach wants and the way the team needs."
Makepeace said he was keen to play his part in helping the Kangaroos to achieve their primary focus for remainder of the year, to develop the club's young players such as Gibson, Andrew Swallow, and Hamish McIntosh.
"I think that's the sort of direction that the club's looking at going for the remainder of the year, to see who's capable of taking the club to the next level."
*Footnote: According to the Encyclopedia of AFL Footballers, Troy is the only Makepeace ever to play senior football. He's recently been exploring his family history and understands his family migrated from Ireland in the late 1800s and moved to Tasmania initially and then to Bendigo and Ballarat. Troy hails from Moe in Gippsland, but he understands there's a handful of Makepeaces scattered across northern Victoria.
