Todd Goldstein says North can take some positives from its loss to Hawthorn.
The ruckman pointed to the Roos’ ability to overcome a slow start, recovering from a 46-point deficit at quarter-time to get back into the game in the second and third quarters.
“We made a lot of mistakes early and Hawthorn was good enough to capitalise on them,” Goldstein said on SEN.
“We really opened the door for them. We had a lot of really simple turnovers by foot, and obviously they pressured and got their tails up.
“It is really hard, but I think it’s a credit to the boys that we were able to actually stand up in the second and third quarters and get back into it and give ourselves a shot.
“I think that was down to our defence, in Lachie Hansen and Robbie Tarrant who really stood tall for us.”
The team didn’t panic, despite the Hawks’ early dominance, with coach Brad Scott backing his players to turn things around.
“He (Scott) didn’t really give us a rocket too hard (at quarter-time), because I think he realised things were going bad,” Goldstein said.
“I don’t think a rocket was going to do a lot of good other than shatter everyone’s confidence that was already at an all-time low.
“He was more just trying to get back to the processes and back to what we’d planned to do. We didn’t execute it at all well in the first quarter, and I think the main focus is to not try and get the 50 points back in the first ten minutes … it’s going to take time.
“It was just about chipping away, getting the ball rolling and getting a few goals back.”
North got to within 13 points midway through the third term, before Hawthorn again broke away in the final quarter.
“It’s incredibly flat for the rest of the weekend and in to today (Monday),” Goldstein said.
“It’s never too fun when you lose by 40 points to come in and do your line meetings and the team review.
“Everyone was pretty flat, but it’s one of those things … we’ve now reviewed the game, we’ve learnt what we needed to learn from it, and it’s important now that as a group we pick ourselves up and realise that we are doing a lot of things right.
“We did play two and a half quarters of really good footy and we really did take it up to Hawthorn to get back into it, so we can take confidence from that.”
The Roos have now lost eight of their past 11 games, but Goldstein is confident they can take steps forward in the final rounds of the season.
“We still have a massive opportunity and we are still in a good position to play finals, to give ourselves another shot at trying to go one better than last year,” he added.
“We do have a couple of boys coming back as well. It was good to see a couple of them playing in the VFL coming back from injury, and I think we get a few more back again this weekend.
“Their enthusiasm to get back and playing footy helps the group along as well.”
