CAPTAIN Nathan Jones says Melbourne’s emphatic 73-point win over the Gold Coast Suns at Metricon Stadium on Saturday was “the response we were after” after it lost to St Kilda last round at Docklands.

Jones said the team needed to bounce back strongly, after a positive start to the season, winning three of its opening five rounds.

“Coming off a really disappointing display last week at Etihad [Stadium], we really steeled ourselves for a big week,” he told Melbourne TV.

“We put in some hard work on the track, and came up here with a job to do and got it done in possible the best fashion, which was a credit to the players, in terms of their preparation.

“We’ve still got a long way to go, but I think it’s an important step winning on the road in the way we did – it was a really important step for the group.”

Jones said Melbourne’s phenomenal second half, when it booted 16 goals to six, felt “really powerful at the time”.

“Particularly, when we are so strong around the contest – that is our core game and that’s what we have got to continue to try and work on, the consistency of that,” he said.

“We felt in the first half, we were really dominating play, but probably handed the ball back a bit too much at times and they capitalised.

“At half-time, we addressed those things and made sure that we didn’t sway from the contest work that we were doing really well. Then, the game started to open up for us, and it’s exciting when we play like that.”

Jones said having 13 individual goalkickers was the end result of what the team was trying to achieve.

“That’s a byproduct of how we play,” he said.

“I think we are really working on trying to create multiple options down there, particularly with our ball movement.

“It’s important that we run to the right patterns and we also want to be known for being unselfish and give it to guys in better positions, so we make the goals a certainty – that came out [against the Suns] without even mentioning it.

“I felt like there were some terrific displays [of unselfish behaviour] by some of the players and it’s always good when we score like that. Everyone gets a lick of the ice-cream and it’s bloody exciting.”