COACH Simon Goodwin says he wasn’t initially aware that Melbourne equalled the record for the most recorded inside 50s (83) in an AFL match, but he was delighted with the statistic.

Speaking after Melbourne’s 69-point win over the Gold Coast Suns at the Gabba on Saturday, Goodwin said he was delighted by his side’s achievement. 

“It’s pleasing that we want to play a forward half game. That’s something we’ve worked on all summer,” he said.

“It’s something that we want to keep doing, but to have that many is a lot, so it’s a credit to our team.

“But we acknowledge the Gold Coast too – they’ve been on the road for eight weeks in a really tough travel schedule, so we understand that they weren’t at their best either. But I’ll give our team full credit though.”

Goodwin said some of his side’s kicks inside 50 were “a bit off” early in the game, before it hit back hard in the latter part of the match.

“We had a lot of dominance in terms of the inside 50s and we probably didn’t reward ourselves early in the game,” he said.

“But in saying that, we just kept persevering and we kept getting that supply and to the boys’ credit, they just kept going and eventually it opened up for us.

“It was a really strong team performance, in terms of the way we played, but the pleasing thing was that we kept going for the whole game and that was something that we’ve been working [on] for a few weeks.”

Meanwhile, Goodwin confirmed Viney would play against Carlton at the MCG in round nine.

“He’s our co-captain and to get him back playing footy is terrific and we’ll see how he goes, but we’re looking forward to getting him into our team,” he said.

“He’ll be ready to go next week.”