The following is a transcript of Brad Scott’s post-media media conference after North Melbourne defeated Melbourne

Scott: I thought it was a win full of character. It was set up pretty well in the first quarter and probably if we kicked straight it could have been a bigger margin.

We knew at quarter time that Melbourne would respond and they duly obliged. They were really hard and tough in the contest – in the second quarter in particular – and got the game played back on their terms.

It ebbed and flowed a little bit but I thought it was a great contest. Certainly in the last quarter there Melbourne had some momentum and I think it shows a fair bit of character to be able to stand up against that momentum and push it back the other way. Our guys did that really well.

It’s been well documented that we’ve had a couple of close losses – more than a couple – this year. And we always say we learn from our mistakes and we go away and work on it. I thought today was a really good sign that the guys are responding to that.

Because you can play 50, 60, 70 games and not experience one or two of those really close losses. There are some other teams going through that at the moment and it’s heartbreaking at the time. It’s all about what you take away from it and how you improve and I thought today showed improvement from our guys.

Q: The midfield after last week Brad, you spoke about being obliterated. I imagine you’re happy with that response?

Scott: Yeah, because they were up against a really good midfield again. Some really hard and tough guys from Melbourne in there.

I was really pleased, particularly Ben Cunnington’s response after spending a fair bit of time off the ground. They weren’t sure until they assessed him if he was going to be able to come back on but clearly he responded with ‘he’s ok’, because not only did he come back on, but I thought he was really dominant in the contest. It was a great response and we’re obviously really pleased that he’s ok.

Q: Will he have to have scans?

Scott: I think they’ll do that just as a matter of course. But the biggest test is function, and he functioned alright.

Q: Are you worried you might not have him (Cunnington) for next week? There were a fair few spotfires and you are worried with might come out of the MRP?

Scott: I think the MRP have made their stance pretty clear on little things like that. Unless they come out publicly and make a public statement that they’re not going to tolerate that anymore, then they’ve got to tolerate it until they do.

Q: It got very fiery, especially in that second quarter. Do you like your players playing on the edge and it felt like there was a really good intensity, or were you concerned that it could go too far?

Scott: We addressed it at half time, that we wanted to be hard and tough in the contest but that’s where we wanted our hardness and toughness. It’s not a street fight, it’s a game of footy.

In football, you prove your hardness and your toughness in the contest and we gave away at least one free kick off the ball and we just wanted to stamp that out. I thought our guys responded really well to that in the second half.

Q: Were there any particular players you went to?

Scott: It was just the whole team. Clearly Shaun Higgins came in for some significant attention early in the game, so players have got to be very careful about standing up for their teammates and letting the team down by giving away free kicks. There is a fine line there.

But we’re certainly not going to leave one of our own players high and dry but at the same time we’ve got to focus on where you show your true aggression and hardness.

Q: The MRP, as you said, do you think that’s given a green light to players about how they approach physical contact and putting in physical contact to a player like Shaun, jumper punches and the like?

Scott: A lot of that sort of stuff isn’t for the MRP, because they use level of force as a guide and I think the level of force is not high enough to warrant a MRP issue. But I think the umpires can make a pretty strong stand early in the game if it’s going on. As soon as there’s a free kick paid, both coaches will stamp it out.

That’s probably what I’d be looking to do if it became an issue, and I don’t think it’s an issue.

Q: What did you think of that jumper punching in the game, do you like it, do you not like it?

Scott: No I don’t like it, because it’s a cheap shot isn’t it? You wouldn’t do that if there weren’t rules.

Because I mean if you cop a jumper punch, what are you going to do? If that’s ok, then I’m going to give you one back and then it just degenerates from there. I think a free kick is the answer, it’s not a MRP issue in my view.

Q: The way you used Ben Brown today, especially early, he seemed to be stationed pretty deep. Was that a conscious tactic to have him deeper and Jarrad working up the ground a bit more?

Scott: We certainly wanted to set that up early, and it was reasonably effective. Melbourne responded in the second quarter, and then we had to change things up again.

I said before the game and during the week, it’s great to have Waitey back, but it’s not ‘Waitey’s back, our forward line will be fine, he’ll kick six and do the job.’ It’s how the forward line functions when they’re together.

That’s the first time we’ve been able to put that particular forward line out together all year, including the JLT series. It was pleasing to get them out there, we’d just like to keep them out there.

Q: Are you impressed by the way that Ben Brown has made himself the focal point in the forward line, especially with Waite and Garner and Wood in and out of the side this year?

Scott: They’re in and out for sure through injury, but they all work in together. We didn’t get it perfect all the time, but we think it’s a pretty dynamic and flexible forward line. One week we saw Waitey a couple of weeks ago kick six and Browny was pretty dominant today.

We’re just trying to create variety and if something’s not working we can change it and go to something else.

Q: You spoke on Friday about the tap outs as against clearances. Now Melbourne still got it by five, was that more what you wanted to see from your midfielders in terms of making the most of those clearances?

Scott: I thought Goldy dominated today. It doesn’t necessarily always translate to direct clearances but we were certainly able to set up the way we wanted to set up, and we were able to dictate from there.

Melbourne are a pretty attacking team from stoppages and if the shoe had been on the other foot, we would have been reactive and I thought we were able to get pretty good use from our clearance wins. The variety that we could throw up in there was mainly because of Goldy’s dominance, and I thought he held up his end of the bargain.

I thought he summarised his game pretty well with that last mark on the goal line.

Q: How much more potent are you in terms of defensive pressure when you’ve got both Kayne (Turner) and Taylor (Garner)?

Scott: That’s a bit of the forward mix that I was alluding to, you get the variety, you get the marking power, you get the pressure, you get the system.

We’ll continue to work really hard with all our other forwards, because we want to end up having a system where it doesn’t matter who’s out there, we can just replace like for like. But at the moment, the guys you mentioned are really important to the way we want to play.

Q: In terms of a response from last week, how impressed were you with the start of the game, I think you were +19 in tackles in the first quarter, with that effort and intensity?

Scott: We got beaten in the contest last week, just killed around the ball. It wasn’t work rate. It’s very easy when you get beaten pretty convincingly like we did last week against Sydney, for people to say we didn’t work hard enough.

I can tell you for a fact that we worked harder against Sydney, the numbers are irrefutable, but we just got beaten in the contest and did a hell of a lot of chasing.

The effort was there last week, but the attention to detail and probably the hardness in the contest wasn’t at the level that Sydney produced. And Melbourne were hard and tough again today but I thought we responded when we needed to.