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NORTH Melbourne coach Brad Scott believes Carlton's lack of tall options won't doesn't automatically give the Kangaroos an advantage on Friday night.
Matthew Kreuzer rucked alone last week against Collingwood after Shaun Hampson injured his knee in the first quarter.
Robbie Warnock isn't a replacement option after being handed a one-game suspension in the VFL.
Scott said Kreuzer's form against the Pies, which included 21 hit-outs, six clearances and 17 touches, showed the big man could operate alone.
"It depends which way you look at it. Kreuzer probably played his best game for the year last week," Scott said on Thursday.
"Players like that of that calibre tend to step up under pressure and he was magnificent last week.
"You could look at it as a weakness, not having a back up for him, or you could say Kreuzer's going to spend the majority of the time in the ruck, and if he's doing that, he's going to be a pretty influential player.
"We're going to have to look at how we can possibly get an advantage but we've got Todd Goldstein in really good form, he got double-teamed last week by Cox and Naitanui, which wore him down a little bit.
"But he's a very resilient player, so I look forward to seeing a great battle between two young ruckmen who can hopefully forge a real rivalry for the next decade or so."
Scott said the players had pulled up better than expected from their physical clash with West Coast.
He also believed his team didn't have an issue with fade outs despite losing to the Eagles on Saturday by two points after holding a lead of nearly six goals in the second quarter.
It followed on from their two-point loss to Port Adelaide in round eight, where they let a 32-point lead go, and after they conceded nine of the last 11 goals against the Brisbane Lions the following week to win by 16 points after leading by 58.
"I suppose the evidence is starting to mount that's the case, but I certainly don't think it's an issue, but the facts are on the table we haven't finished off games as well as we would have liked," he said.
"The players are really clear on why that happens and it's nothing to do with endurance or the style of play.
"It's to do with us making some errors and we've been working on consistency in our game, and we made some errors against West Coast.
"People say we were 35 points up but we conceded a goal on the siren at half time, we conceded a goal in the first minute of the third quarter, and then we gave away a 50m penalty and conceded another goal. All of a sudden, it's game on.
"There's a lot more to it than simply suggesting we've got an issue with fading out. We've got an issue with consistency across the board."
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North Melbourne v Carlton
Friday July 13, 7.50pm
Etihad Stadium
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs.
Jennifer Witham is a reporter for AFL Media. Follow her on Twitter @AFL_JenWitham.
