After being on the end of five losses last year by more than 60 points, the Bombers didn't let up on the Suns, and Hird was buoyed by the attitude.
"If you were at Essendon last year, we had a 100-point loss, and we had a couple of big losses and you saw the psyche of the guys when they smelt that they could win by a lot," Hird said.
"They've been on the other end of this last year and they wanted to actually hand one out.
"The really pleasing thing from our team's point of view is that they smelt it, and they wanted to put the shoe on the other foot, and they did it. The feeling in our dressing rooms is really, really good at the moment because of that," he said.
As the Bombers moved into fifth position on the ladder with their third win, Hird said he was happy with the whole game, despite the Suns outscoring the Bombers in the second term after trailing by a record 93 points at quarter-time.
"You put all of them (the quarters) together and it was a good game. Yeah, we didn't play that well in the second quarter, but it's hard when you have a quarter like the first one to keep the guys at it," he said.
"But the great thing about the day was that in the third and fourth quarter they went back and played the way we wanted them to play.
"Our boys have been up for a long time. They’ve played four really good NAB Cup games and they've had some pretty good form over the first five weeks, so a quarter like that you're not going to get too upset with them over."
Hird said the record opening term was even more impressive as he was unsure how the side would recover from a six-day break after an intense Anzac Day loss to Collingwood.
"Six days off after a massive game was always our worry with how we'd perform. We gave the boys a very light week because we wanted them to come off six days and play well and they did," Hird said.
"You go from a game in front of 90,000 people to a game in front of 35,000 and there is a sense that they might not perform as well, but no doubt in the first quarter they showed no hangover from Anzac Day.
"[The first-quarter demolition will] probably never happen again and we didn't expect it to happen."
