MELBOURNE coach Simon Goodwin used his side's dismal record against North Melbourne to challenge his players in the build-up to the breakthrough win at the MCG.

Rather than shy away from the negative aspects of North Melbourne's 12-year dominance, Goodwin used the seize-the-moment theme during the normal weekly meetings.

"We wanted to look at the game as an opportunity to actually implement change for our footy club. And not a fear-based change, an excitement-based opportunity," Goodwin said.

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"It's not too often you get opportunities. You get them in finals, in Grand Finals, you get them in some home-and-away games that are really important. We had an opportunity today to change the narrative of our footy club that has been there for a long time. To actually have the start we had and respond was outstanding.

"We addressed it because that was the reality. The reality was they had won 17 in a row against us. There was an opportunity today to change that.

"It's huge. Our supporters have obviously gone through 17 losses and I'm just rapt for our supporters. We've been able to change the narrative before with Etihad (Stadium) and St Kilda and now to change the narrative here is something we're proud of."

WATCH: Simon Goodwin's full post match press conference

Goodwin was full of praise for ruckman Max Gawn's contribution based on 50 hit-outs, including 23 centre clearances, and 18 possessions.

"That's up there with one of the best games I've seen him play. Quality opposition, we have enormous respect for Todd (Goldstein) and the way he has been playing. I thought Gawny was a significant factor in the game," he said.

And he lauded the workrate of forward Jesse Hogan whose lone goal compared to North Melbourne counterpart Ben Brown's four didn't tell half the story.

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"He's doing a power of work, Jesse. He's working for us as a forward and also through the midfield. We wanted to get him up the ground a bit today. We thought we had some exciting forwards, (Christian) Petracca, (Clayton) Oliver, Bayley Fritsch down deeper and I thought Jesse's influence for us was significant," the Demons coach said.

Goodwin also praised the growing maturity of his team to regroup from the Roos' flying start and work to steadily gain control of the contest.

"I really liked the way we played. Clearly, the first 10, 15 minutes wasn't ideal, but in general our starts have been really solid. I just loved the way the guys steadied through the first quarter, didn't take quarter-time (break) to get on track, they did it in-quarter," he said.

"They played our brand of footy. We probably have to tidy up a bit of polish inside 50, but if you have 65 inside 50s, you're doing a fair bit right.

"I think there's a belief building within the team, but they still understand there's a lot of work to be done. And that's the exciting thing. They understand the brand of footy we want to play and how exciting they can be. But they still know there's lot of room for improvement to become the team we want to become. But we have to keep focusing on what's ahead of us and that's (Hawthorn) next week."