MELBOURNE defender Jared Rivers might have been on the losing side at Skilled Stadium on Sunday but he had plenty of reasons to be satisfied.

The 30-point loss to Geelong was Rivers' first AFL match since round six last year, and just his fourth game since the club's last finals campaign in 2006.

The 2004 NAB AFL Rising Star winner said after the match that he never understood how difficult it was to play at the highest level until his osteitis pubis injury forced him on the sidelines.

"I didn't realise how mental AFL footy is until the last couple of years, so it's definitely a mental game and I've just got to try and think positively and last year has given me another year on my playing days, because I didn't play much [in 2007]," Rivers told melbournefc.com.au.

"I've fully recovered from injury and I can play every game this year and move forward.

"The body is feeling great, but I played a couple of matches with 'Sandy' [Sandringham] to get back in the ones. It's been a long couple of years, so I'm hope I can get out there and do my job."

Rivers who battled manfully against 2007 premiership hero Cameron Mooney, restricting the key Cat to just two goals, said it helped to play against one of the competition's power forwards in his comeback match.

"I haven't played for so long and to go out there and play on a big forward like Cameron Mooney was a pretty scary, but you've just got to get out there and do the basics and do your thing to help the team," Rivers said.

"I'm glad I got through unscathed, so hopefully I can get more of the ball next week."

Although disappointed with the result, Rivers said Melbourne's effort was much-improved than its opening two rounds.

"It was a lot better performance all-round, but we still made silly errors and they kicked a couple of goals on the line that they shouldn't have kicked and we should've spoiled through. It was a five-goal [the difference] game, so we can definitely improve," Rivers said.

"We know people are going to come up to us and say: 'Well done for losing by only 30 points', but we're not happy with that and we can still improve and this week against the Kangaroos we've got improve in a few areas to get better.

"Everyone's effort was fantastic throughout the whole game."