JESSE Hogan says he was flattered to receive "a pump-up" from LA Dodgers manager Dave Roberts via social media last week, but adds he hasn’t put the ton on the cards this season, as the baseball mentor suggested he could achieve in 2018. 

Hogan was arguably best-on-ground in Melbourne’s 26-point win over the Brisbane Lions at the Gabba on Saturday night, kicking five goals.

It came on the back of an unexpected fan in Roberts, who spoke to ESPN Australia and New Zealand about Melbourne being his team and Hogan being his favourite player.

But the 23-year-old key forward took it all in his stride.

“He gave me a bit of a pump-up,” Hogan told Melbourne Media. 

“I’m not sure [100 goals] is on the agenda yet, but it surprised me when I woke up and had a [Twitter] notification from ESPN and from such a great of the game.

“It was a good laugh.”

Reflecting on the win over the Lions, Hogan said it was a hard-fought contest that demanded plenty of grit.

“To get the first four points of the year is always big – you don’t want to go into round three still not having any points. We’ll review it, and review what we did well, and then we’ll review that third quarter and go from there,” he said.

“The first half, coming off last week’s loss, was awesome. But we didn’t expect Brisbane to come out and do what they did in the second half and nullify us the way they did, which was disappointing for us, but we got there in the end.

“Our leaders stood up … and we got back to what we were doing right in the first two quarters. We just needed to get back to the fundamentals, and not do all the bells and whistles. It was just getting back to what we do best.”