MELBOURNE were certainly made to work hard for their first up win of the AFL Women’s season, eventually holding on for a narrow two point win over Geelong.

Speaking after the match, Melbourne coach Mick Stinear was really pleased with how his side fought out the win.

“It was a tough end to last year, but obviously nice to start afresh this year,” Stinear said. “But tonight with the team, they earned it. They really earned it. It was a tough physical game. “Geelong had us on the back foot early with a couple of goals, but really pleased with the team’s ability to fight through it, work through it.

“I feel like they really deserve the win. We probably had a chance to hit the scoreboard in that last quarter, just to stretch the lead a little bit. But that’s footy and I’m just pleased to see the team fight it out.”

Geelong had the ascendency early, but Melbourne fought back hard to earn the win. Stinear said a few tweaks were made to see the Dees get back into the game.

“We felt like we were winning the clearance battle, but we weren’t winning territory,” Stinear said. “Like we’d win the ball, take it forward, they would win it in our forward line and then go back at us the other way. So the second half, we were a bit better ahead of the ball in our forwardline, so we got a stronger contest.

“Our ground level game in the forward half looked a bit stronger, and then we were able to have some time in forward half and get reward for effort in the second half. I think that’s where the game shifted in line with our contest work, the repeat efforts, effective tackles.”

Kate Hore played a huge role particularly early for the Dees, and her coach was full of praise for his captain.

“She’s got a great will to win and had good recognition from her peers just in our meeting prior to coming in here,” Stinear said. “The team loved playing with her. Her finishing tonight was excellent, and that capacity to be able to play midfield and go forward.”

“Tonight was a game of … winning your moments and those contest wins, and she certainly did that and inspired her teammates as well. We’re pretty fortunate to have her versatility and someone that just continues to get better in this competition. So very happy with her performance tonight and good to see her smiling with the team and enjoying a win.”

The one down note for the Dees after the win was a re-aggravation of a shoulder injury to Tayla Harris.

“There were two moments of instability throughout the game, I think one early and then one in that third quarter, so that was enough to rule her out for the rest of the game,” Stinear said. “And we’ll just look to get some scans tomorrow or Monday and just see where that’s at.

“She was okay after the game. (It was) probably the shoulder injury that occurred a couple of months ago in our pre season camp at a training session. There was just another little flare up of that unfortunately, so we’ll learn the extent of that. But she seemed to be okay after the game, so we’ll update you once we know more as well.”

Despite Harris having an interrupted preseason due to injury, Stinear did not believe she was underdone heading into last night’s match.

“No, I didn’t see any risk playing her,” Harris said. “I think once we got the all clear from the quad, she has done a lot of training in the pre season and having that surgery back in December and a solid few months of rehab and a lot of skills and fundamentals and I feel like she was ready to play tonight.

“It was probably just some, some unfortunate moments that she’s had a bit of a flare up. But we’ll review and find out, but no, very comfortable with her taking the field tonight.”