'It should've been closer'
North Melbourne coach Brad Scott has expressed his disappointment at his side's lack of consistency from week-to-week
NORTH Melbourne coach Brad Scott has called for greater consistency from his team after it failed to back up last week's surprise win over Geelong against the Sydney Swans on Sunday.
The Kangaroos were the talk of the AFL after an outstanding 17-point win over the Cats, their first win against a top-four side in two years.
But they failed to get out of the blocks against the Swans, trailing by 26 points at quarter-time before succumbing by 36 points.
Asked if the performance was disappointing, Scott said: "It was.
"We were really looking forward to this game, coming up here [to the SCG] and playing against a very good contested ball side on a very small ground in what turned out to be humid and slippery conditions.
"To convincingly win contested ball, clearances, be ahead in inside 50s, ahead on all the key stats; it's becoming a losing coach's line that one.
"When you lose you can pull out all the stats you want, but clearly Sydney adapted to the conditions much better than we did early.
"We got off to a poor start, once we adapted we were more competitive, but the early lead we conceded proved insurmountable."
Apart from some statistics, one element that did please Scott was his side's ability to fight in the final term.
The match appeared over at the final change as the Swans held a 40-point lead, but Scott implored his men to make one final effort and they responded.
North managed 19 inside 50s to nine in the final term, but could only manage a return of 3.6 to the Swans' 3.2 as the Roos' rally fell short.
"The game should've been closer than the margin suggested," Scott said.
"The fundamentals of our game are fairly sound, we just have to be able to adapt to conditions like these a bit quicker than we did.
"I expect the same effort and the same intensity and the same concentration [we had last week] to adhere to what we're doing.
"I really called for a big effort from the boys at three-quarter time, I thought we were still right in the game, and we had nine scoring shots in the last quarter and couldn't convert them.
"If we'd converted … but our challenge is to stop those fluctuations and if you've got the foundation of really good effort, I think you're really well-placed."
James Dampney covers Sydney AFL news for AFL.com.au. Follow him on Twitter: @AFL_JD
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily of the AFL or the clubs
