There is only one thing better than a first-up victory at home, a victory on the coach’s birthday.

Nathan Burke celebrated his 52^nd with a 17-point victory, sighting wins all around the ground as the key to victory during the Pride Match against Richmond on Sunday.

“Really enjoyable to celebrate it (birthday) with my second family,” Burke said. “There is no place I’d rather be.”

“They actually sang happy birthday to me before the start of the warmup – I wasn’t expecting it, I thought they’d be concentrating more on the game.

“Really pleased for the reward for effort. The effort throughout the whole season I couldn’t question, particularly given what we have been through with games postponed and no one being at training.”

Despite a difficult start to the campaign, Burke was optimistic of the signs shown by all the girls and taking on adversity throughout the opening stanza.

The way we have played the last three weeks hasn’t been the way we’ve wanted to play,” he said.

“The whole week we’ve worked on kicking to a target and presenting up forward.

“I look at the review tomorrow and can show a dozen efforts of this is how we want to move the ball, this is us. We haven’t been able to do that to start the season.”

“The backline under Mel Hickey were really well structured, they covered really well but all lines were fantastic.”

Burke hailed the work of several key stars, entering the game off the back of COVID effects over the past month.

“Today we had 17 of our 21 players that have had COVID and are at various stages of recovery,” he said.

“This was our third game in nine days, when you look at it that way with the searing heat and a travel to GWS, it was a great performance.

“It has been extremely challenging month but I haven’t heard one whinge of any from the players.”

The Bulldogs next test will come in the form of Adelaide, with the side set to travel to South Australia next Sunday.