MELBOURNE won’t be taking the four points home from Perth, but co-captain Nathan Jones was proud of his side’s effort on Friday night.

The Demons fell 16 points short of West Coast at a hostile Optus Stadium, but controlled a lot of the contest before being overrun in the final term.

“We were bloody competitive,” Jones told Melbourne Media.

“We came over here to try to get a win and for most of the night we were in a great position, but I think they’re a very mature side and obviously the best in the competition last year.

“There were some terrific signs from our boys.

“If you look at it from a holistic perspective, I think we took some steps forward as a group as well.

“We’ll review that and build on that, but right now immediately after the game it’s hard to accept that.”

The Demons aren’t content with honourable losses but showed some signs of improvement on Friday night.

After putting plenty of work into their forward connection, the Dees’ looked dangerous on the attack against the Eagles, but some wayward kicking in front of the sticks ultimately robbed them of victory.

“In the end that’s probably cost us,” Jones said.

“If we kick 15 (goals) nine (behinds), we win the game obviously.

“You’ve got to take your chances. We created enough chances, no doubt about that. But you’ve got to take them to win the game. It’s frustrating, very frustrating.”

Coming off back-to-back victories, the Demons entered Round 9 with plenty of belief, and although they didn’t get the win in Perth, they played with flare and regained the spark that had been missing in the early part of the season.

“We had a clear plan to break down West Coast and once we broke a line, we had a lot of space to run and carry,” Jones said.

“There’s no doubt that was part of our planning [and] that’s probably why we created so many opportunities up forward.

“But I think the next step for us is to finish those chances.”

With a 16-man injury list, Melbourne was undermanned this week, but some young Demons stood up and impressed Jones on the big stage.

“We unearthed Oskar Baker and it was great to see Harry Petty get another run – I thought he was terrific,” he said.

“We do play a system-based game and no matter who’s playing we rely on guys to come in and execute a role and we got that for most of the night.

“But in the end, we probably shot ourselves in the foot not taking our chances.”

While the co-captain was clearly disappointed post-game, he understands the group can learn from the outing.

“There’ll be some real positives we can build on out of it,” he said.

“We’ll mull over it over the next 24 hours but then really build into the week.

“There’ll be a huge amount of things that we can build on from the game.”

The Demons will have a nine-day break before looking to get back on the winners list against GWS at the MCG next Sunday.