NORTH Melbourne coach Brad Scott is confident his club has the systems in place to help his players avoid the kind of off-field controversy besetting St Kilda.

Scott was keen to stress that no club was immune from off-field problems, and was at pains to make no comment on the the Saints' woes, but he backed the Kangaroos' off-field programs when quizzed on the topic on Melbourne radio on Tuesday.

"We're very strong at North Melbourne on actively having our players engaged off-field," Scott told radio station SEN the morning after four St Kilda players were fined and suspended for indiscretions involving misuse of prescription drugs and alcohol on the club's New Zealand trip.

"We certainly make it mandatory for all players to engage in either study or work of some description.

"We believe a better-rounded person makes a better footballer in the long run, so it's something we think is really important in their overall development."

While not defending the actions of Saints' players Zac Dawson, Jack Steven, Paul Cahill and Rhys Stanley, Scott said it was important for the public to understand the demands made of AFL footballers.

"All I can really talk about is North Melbourne, but I think a lot of people would be surprised if they came down and observed these players and what they go through in a standard week in a pre-season," he said.

"There's an enormous time commitment, it's more than a full-time job contrary to popular belief, and these guys go through an enormous amount of not only football education but also off-field education as well.

"We're about producing better-balanced people, certainly very talented sportsmen, but trust me if it was easy what these guys, do everyone would do it.

"It's far from easy. They train extremely hard, but we do focus very strongly on what they do off the field and that's all-important because we want to produce quality people."

With the off-field behaviour of AFL players in the spotlight, Scott maintained the AFL industry as a whole continued to do an excellent job educating young men on the pitfalls of their high-profile profession.

"While these incidents tend to make headlines I think if you look at the overall football population these incidents are quite rare," he said.

"We'd prefer as an industry that it never happened, but I think if you look at society in general kids at that age make mistakes constantly.

"What a football club can do is provide a really great framework to educate players and people as to how they should behave in society, and I think generally the AFL does that exceptionally well."