An "extremely proud" GIANTS coach Leon Cameron admitted that his belief had been shaken after his side's 0-3 start to the year.
"If I sat here and … denied that then I would probably be kidding myself," he said.
"Belief comes from strong performances. We were flat after round one. We thought we probably did enough to get the job done. We had a young group the next week but the thing I loved about last week was we fought the fight against Melbourne.
"We lost the game but we never, ever gave in and when they rocked up on a six-day break for training on Tuesday you could clearly see they just want to play footy. We're an extremely young group at the moment. You can't take away the enthusiasm of youth and it's a significant night for us."
Cameron praised stand-in captain Toby Greene for his match-winning five-goal haul but said the gun forward was comfortable as full-time skipper Stephen Coniglio's deputy, while also suggesting the club would continue to use "part-time" ruckman Shane Mumford on an ad hoc basis after coming into the side and performing well against Collingwood star Brodie Grundy.
"It was the perfect game for Shane to come in. Where we get to [with him] I can't give you the answer. Does he play again next week and then has a spell? Clearly he can't do what he used to do and part of me also wants to develop the next ruckman as well so it's a fine line," Cameron said.
"I couldn't expect him playing three or four games in a row."
