Until last Saturday's 62-point win over the Tigers, the Roos had struggled to maintain their defensive intensity over four quarters this season, too often letting opponents back into matches they seemed to have won.
The most galling examples came in round two when North let a 41-point lead slip against Geelong and in round nine when it somehow lost to the Crows after leading by 30 points midway through the final quarter.
Against the Tigers, North bounded to a 53-point half-time lead, but conceded the first four scoring shots of the third term (1.3) as the Tigers closed to within 44 points.
However, any hope that run gave Richmond was quickly snuffed out, as the Roos maintained their almost maniacal defensive pressure to the final siren.
Hine told AFL.com.au this week the challenge for North now was to maintain that defensive intensity every round.
"I think early this season our defence was probably the part that was letting us down the most," Hine said.
"Everyone could see how effective we were going forward with the footy, but we obviously tightened up late in games and our defence would let us down a little bit.
"But our defence has really come a long way as a full unit, the whole team has really put a big emphasis on defence going into the second half of the year.
"It's starting to come good, but that has to continue to be our emphasis for the next six or seven rounds if we're any hope of making the finals."
Hine said the Roos' one-point loss to the Crows – which followed a four-point loss to Geelong, a three-point loss to Hawthorn in round five and a two-point loss to West Coast in round eight – had forced the Roos to confront their defensive failings.
"Once you've lost three or four close games that you've been in positions to win, you have to change something so you can win those close games," Hine said.
"We just had a few little things to change and we've been working really hard at that the last month or so."
Thompson told AFL.com.au that although North's string of close losses might ultimately cost it a place in the finals, the lessons the players had learned from those games would prove invaluable.
"If we had maybe won those games by a goal instead of losing by a goal, we could have overlooked the things that we didn't do right," Thompson said.
"But we obviously looked at the things we could improve on and some of the work we've put in on the track since showed out in the game against Richmond. We didn't have any lapses and we just kept on hammering at them and chipping away and finally breaking them.
"We definitely learnt a lot from those close losses - we need to control the ball a bit better in the last few minutes and keep taking the game on and playing the way that got us five goals up in the first place."
