Brad Scott pulled no punches after North Melbourne's disappointing six-goal loss to Adelaide, describing the majority of the team's performance as terrible and uneven.

 

He's clearly frustrated by the Kangaroos' enigmatic form with his team capable of matching it with the competition's best one week and struggling to compete the next. 

 

North boasts wins over Sydney, Fremantle and Port Adelaide this year, but have been very poor in their four other losses against Essendon, Collingwood, Gold Coast and Geelong. 

"The stark difference between the way we played and the way they played was enormous," Scott said.

"Some of our players were okay, some were terrible.

"We don't get 22 contributors each week."

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Scott was most disappointed by his team's lack of desire to win the contest.

 

"Adelaide was desperate but we would get to a contest and stand there and look at each other," Scott lamented.

"We only had 15 inside-50s in the first half because we kept kicking backwards."

 

Veteran Brent Harvey was North's best with 31 possessions and two goals, while Levi Greenwood and Ben Cunnington toiled hard and Lindsay Thomas booted four goals.

But aside from that there were a lot of Kangaroos off their game with Jack Ziebell, Drew Petrie, Leigh Adams and Aaron Black all failing to have a meaningful impact. 

It was Adelaide's pressure that they succumbed to all night and made the Roos' brand of footy almost unrecognisable.

 

"If you want to get pressured and cough up the ball, do what we did tonight," Scott said.

 

North Melbourne blew its chance to stay in touch with the top four and at the same time allowed West Coast and Adelaide to close the gap on the top eight.  

They have two very winnable games against Melbourne and Brisbane ahead but Scott knows they can't be this inconsistent at the business end of the season.

 

"We had the players in tonight that were capable of getting the job done but they just didn't do it," Scott said.

"We'll have a good look at them throughout the week and try and work out a way to lift next week."