After welcoming the agony, Jim Stynes revelled in the ecstasy.

The Melbourne president publicly praised his AFL team and led them in a loud rendition of their theme song after they smashed Adelaide by 96 points on Sunday at the MCG.

The win followed a rugged 10 days of scrutiny and criticism in the wake of their meek round-six surrender to West Coast.

Speaking before Sunday's match, Stynes had said the fallout from the Eagles disaster would be good for the Demons and their development.

"I've really welcomed it, because how do you become a resilient football team? You've got to fail along the way and you've got to struggle and it's in the struggle that you become great at what you do," Stynes said at a pre-game function.

In the rooms afterwards, Stynes spoke of how well the team had responded to the criticism.

"You felt it, you hurt and you decided to make a stand," Stynes told the players.

"Without doubt, it's our best win in three years."

Asked later if these past 10 days had been the toughest period in his presidency, Stynes replied "without a doubt.

"I've been given a good run and also ... the expectations haven't been there," he added.

"Our expectations in the last two years have just been to compete, whereas the expectations this year are that we have to be a bit better."

Like coach Dean Bailey, Stynes also said it was vital that the team back up this win with continued improvement.

"We know we're not going to be able to play like this every week, we know that, but if we can respond like this, it's another feather in our cap," he said.

"It will help them to know they have a bit of resilience ... to know they can cop the criticism.

"We took a step today, it's a very important win - we just needed to right the ship and we have.

"Hopefully now the boys will take something from this and next week's effort will be no different."

Stynes also said he had only taken on an added role as football director on the board until the right person could be found for the job.

"We'll do that (appoint a permanent director) when it's right," he added.

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