There’s always lessons to be learnt after playing the reigning premiers, and for North, much of next week will be spent identifying and trying to rectify itsmistakes from Wednesday night.

“It’s going to important for us to look at the vision and hopefully build our game off that,” Hrovat told SEN on Friday.

“From every loss there’s going to be a fair bit of learning involved, so I’m sure throughout the next week we’ll take a look at the vision and learn a much as we can from the game.

“We can analyse the game and take some learnings out of Richmond because they’re going to be a really good side again this year.”

North fell short in its final JLT Community Series match by 70 points, but managed to keep Richmond within reach for much of the game, trailing by less than four goals at half-time.    

“Richmond were very good,” Hrovat said.

“I think we were pretty good in the first half and showed how we want to play our footy this year, but probably just faded a bit in the second half.

“I just think they play a really solid game style in the terms of being able to move the ball quickly and put opposition defences under pressure.

“You can see we did it really well and were able to keep up with them for a half on Wednesday night, but they obviously got the better of us in the second half.” 

The players are currently conducting country visits around Victoria before going on their mini-break, meaning the squad will return to the track on Wednesday in the lead-up to Round 1 on March 24.