Lapses in concentration have proven costly for North Melbourne in the past fortnight and co vice-captain Drew Petrie says it’s time for the club’s more experienced players to lead the way when the pressure is on.

“It’s up to the senior players to get hold of the footy and just to control the game for five or so minutes to get it back on our terms,” Petrie told Damien Barrett and Luke Darcy on AFL.com.au’s Access All Areas.

“We play pretty fast footy and we like to play on a lot of the time inside 50. But when it rebounds we are caught napping a few times and we probably just need to chip it around a little bit more.”

The Kangaroos held a 58-point lead at one stage against the Lions, but when the final siren sounded were barely three goals ahead.

“We’ve had the foot on the throat of Brisbane again yesterday and we must just stop concentrating I guess and think that our job’s done when it’s only half done."

It was a pretty similar story the week previous, when the Power came back from a 32-point deficit to win.

“In the Port Adelaide game there were times when players were not manning up. It’s one of the simple aspects of football, but when you don’t do it the results are costly.”

With just four wins from nine games, North Melbourne is within a game of the top eight, but Petrie believes his team should be higher, if not for some wasted opportunities earlier in the season.

“We got away with one again yesterday (against the Lions), but I think after that Geelong game we had to capitalise on playing Sydney up there (at the SCG) without (Adam) Goodes and (Shane) Mumford. We didn’t do that, and then we got West Coast in Perth without (Josh) Kennedy, and (Nic) Naitanui pulled out before the game. We’ve had opportunities and we just haven’t capitalised throughout the year.”

Nevertheless, there’s no doubting the value of grabbing the four points on Sunday, and the effect a win can have on players’ morale.

“Something we had to do yesterday was win and if we hadn’t have done that we would have been pushing uphill for the rest of the season,” Petrie added.

“We come up against Hawthorn this week, so after a win and coming into the break we really need to put in a good performance. I’d much rather cop Hawthorn after a big win themselves, but they had a nasty defeat so they’ll be pretty fired up this week.”

Petrie believes the club’s back six has been a shining light this year, despite North conceding 890 points for the season - statistically the fourth-worst defensive record in the league.

“That’s probably been our strongest line this year the defence,” he said.

“Opposition sides have been able to get a lot of inside 50’s against us so they’ve (the defence) held up really well. I think it’s important that the rest of us can help slow the amount of inside 50’s and the pace that the ball goes in there for the rest of the year.”