General manager of football Todd Viney has provided further insight into Saturday's interchange error that ultimately resulted in Sydney's match-winning goal.

After working their way into the lead through stirring, fourth-quarter goals to Callum Coleman-Jones, Tom Powell, Nick Larkey and Harry Sheezel, the Roos held a three-point lead with 40 seconds left to play until an an interchange infringement saw Swans tall Hayden McLean awarded a free kick and a 50-metre penalty.

McLean converted his set shot from the goalsquare, dashing North Melbourne's hopes of a hard-earned win at home.

"It was really disappointing, the boys played their hearts out all game and we got ourselves in a position to win the game," Viney told NMFC Media on Monday.

"Unfortunately there was a perfect storm when it came to our interchange process ... but we had two players come to the bench, one was called and one was impromptu due to injury, and at the end of the day our systems didn't handle that situation and the communication wasn't quite right.

"That resulted in one extra interchange and that goal (to Sydney) that we saw.

"We sat down today as a club to look at the different processes that we've got in place and we've worked on a few things to tighten that up, mainly around the communication, and hopefully, should the scenario happen again in the dying minutes of a game, we'll be better placed to handle that situation."

North Melbourne went over the maximum 75 rotations allowed when Tom Powell and Hugh Greenwood replaced Will Phillips and a sore Liam Shiels, and Viney states that the club had received a warning after making its 74th switch.

"It's my understanding that we did get the warning saying that we had one (interchange) left," Viney said.

"The communication from bench to box wasn't quite good enough, but we think we've put things in place now that will safeguard that should it happen again."

Viney also addressed the "disappointing" social media comments aimed at North Melbourne's staff members.

"We understand our supporters' passion, we understand the frustration - that we all felt - on the day," Viney said.

"We thought we'd done all we could to get that win, so we understand the frustration but the one thing this club is about is looking after our people.

"There's not one person that's at fault for this, there was just a breakdown of communication from a number of people ... so we own that and we'll get better as a club but we'll stick by our people."