MELBOURNE got itself back on the AFL Women’s winners list last night with a 16 point win over GWS.

The relief of snapping a four match losing run was clear on the face of Dees coach Mick Stinear last night.

“Yeah, it was just good to see them enjoy that winning feeling,” Stinear said.

“They’d worked really hard during the week and it was a tough loss last week, but a few little adjustments to game style, few role changes. There was a few more outs, so they had to deal with a bit of adversity again, but they, they just embraced it, and then today we were able to execute our plan for longer.

“They competed well, right throughout the game, and we just connected a lot better on offense and took more moments and opportunities.”

Crippled by injuries for much of this season, the Dees were playing more like the Melbourne of old last night, but Stinear said that to get them back to that after the disaster of last week was just that “we just simplified a few things.”

“I think you go through a preseason with a plan in mind of how you want to play and how you can maximize your talent, and then obviously things change very quickly and they’ve kind of evolved over the last few weeks,” he said. “And then just at the end of last week, it was, okay, how do we help this group, get the best out of it? How do we help them enjoy their footy, connect a bit more?”

The epitome of Melbourne playing like itself again was Alyssa Bannan, who returned to form in a big way last night and kicked two majors.

“She had a really good week,” Stinear said.

“Like a lot of her teammates, just being honest and open with each other and wanting to be a bit freer and play our way, and she reflected that. I think she was launching at everything. She was very selfless with the ball and I think the team also gave her a chance to do that. They were putting the ball to her advantage and backing her in.”

Now hitting a critical point in the season in terms of Melbourne having any hope of making finals, Stinear agreed that last night’s win was critical for his side’s season but he also said that “I think we just needed that bit of belief.”

“I think we’ve sort of been close, that Freo game definitely took a took a big hit. Just that feeling of we can we can do this and actually some of our debutants getting that feeling of what it is like to play together and connect on field and have more of those moments.

“So critical for the season, but just really important for our young group at the moment to know what that feels like and then be able to replicate it, and we get the challenge to be able to do that against Adelaide next week.”