Melbourne was expected to lose to Geelong on Sunday afternoon and did, but there were plenty of positives to come out of the match according to coach Dean Bailey.

Geelong entered the clash as one of the shortest priced favourites of all time, but Melbourne took it up to them early and even won the last quarter when everyone was expecting a whitewash.

They aren't there yet, but there are signs that Melbourne is not far away from producing competitive football week in week out and Bailey believes his team has improved immensely since last season.

"We want to see continual improvement and our players are really committed to improving," Bailey said after Melbourne lost to Geelong by 43 points.

"I hope our 30,000 plus members can see a lot of good things out of today's effort."

"The effort is there, the competitiveness is there."

"Our players are working really hard and they are committed. If we can build on that I think we are moving forward. There is no doubt about that."

While Bailey could not fault his side's endeavour, it was the skill errors and sloppy turnovers that riled him.

"That last kick inside 50 that we have been working on at training, we need to get better at that so we can score," he said.

"We turned it over just outside our forward 50 or just inside it, which they were able to counter attack and almost go uncontested the length of the ground."

"The frustration is the skill errors under no pressure."

Bailey was pleased with the performance of several of his younger players and veteran forward Russell Robertson received extra praise from the Melbourne coach.

Robertson had been out of action for almost 12 months with an Achilles injury, but he returned to the senior side in excellent fashion to finish the game with 10 disposals, six marks and three important goals.

Kicking goals has been a problem at Melbourne for some time now and Bailey said it was crucial to keep Robertson injury free this season.

"It was just good to see Robbo back and playing today. He kicked three. It was probably a good game for him to get out of the way so he can get on with the rest of the year," Bailey said.

"I would think that Russell still has to improve in a lot of areas, but for him to come back and kick three in his first game it was good for us."