Ahead of the closing month of the AFL home-and-away season, interim coach Brett Ratten, general manager of football Todd Viney, and list and recruiting manager Brady Rawlings joined host Nigel Carmody to answer some important questions from North Melbourne members.

Here are five key takeaways and responses from the most recent edition of our Member Q&A, presented by Mazda.

Continuity is key as the club implements change

Asked why the club has been struggling to convert solid performances into wins this season, Todd Viney emphasised the need to have key personnel fit and firing to implement the new gameplan:

"We believe we should have won more than two games, but we are trying to develop a team, a list, and a game style that's hopefully going to produce silverware. We're trying to introduce a lot of new ideas, a lot of new concepts … continuity is key to that.

"Right from pre-season we didn't have any of our key defenders playing or training in Aidan Corr, Ben McKay and Griffin Logue – they didn't train at all together – and then during the year through the midfield we've missed Jy Simpkin a couple of times with concussion and a fractured hand. Luke Davies-Uniacke has had an interrupted season too, so we haven’t had the consistency and at the same time we lost our senior coach (Alastair Clarkson).

"So, when you talk about continuity and the ability to keep rehearsing, keep training, keep playing and executing roles in a new gameplan, we haven't had that."

Tall defenders are high on the off-season shopping list

With full-back Ben McKay attracting interest from rival clubs as he becomes a restricted free agent, Brady Rawlings was asked about the plans to bolster the Kangaroos' tall options in defence in case McKay chose to leave:

"Obviously when you've got a player coming into free agency this year, we always knew we were going to have to scout for that position.

"Once Griffin Logue went down with his knee, it highlighted the need for us to have more depth and coverage in that position. We're definitely looking in that space.

"[In terms of the draft] it really depends on where your picks end up at the end of the year. Currently we've got pick two and pick 17 and I'm tipping that's not where they're going to end up by the time we get to the national draft. If you're picking at the real pointy end of the draft, it's hard to go past the absolute (best) talent.

"Clearly when you're picking inside the top five, you're going to pick up some future stars, so if that’s the case we'll be looking at bringing in the (best available player), but we are well aware that we haven’t picked very tall over recent seasons."

Assistance packages alone won't deliver success

Asked whether North Melbourne will apply for an assistance package from the AFL, Viney said the club would explore every option but was also focused on laying the foundations for future success:

"The AFL is well aware that we've won 11 games in the last four years … and the AFL is about being competitive and having that competitive balance.

"On the other side of that … the process we're going to have to undergo as a club is more than assistance packages and priority picks. That's part of the journey and we'll go down the right avenues, but we need to get all of our internal processes right.

"We have to find more sustainable ways to become a really good team and club … we've got a lot of the foundations and the fundamentals of what we need to do to become a good club and chase silverware."

There's been improvement beyond the first-year players this season

Discussing the positives that fans can take out of the season so far, Brett Ratten said the exciting crop of first-year Kangaroos weren't the only indications that brighter times lie ahead for the North Melbourne faithful:

"You've got (Harry) Sheezel who could win the Rising Star Award, (George) Wardlaw, Blake Drury has played, Cooper Harvey is playing at the moment … and that's pretty exciting knowing that we've got the next draft as well.

"But there's probably things on a Monday to Friday that you don’t see. The growth of our leadership group and some of the conversations and feedback we're having in team meetings now is a lot stronger … they're pushing for greater standards from each other.

"We haven’t seen that transfer to wins yet, but you'll see it come eventually."

The club will be targeting mature-age talent alongside young guns

Asked whether the recruiting team will be targeting mature-age players in the free agency and trade periods, Rawlings confirmed the club will be hunting established talent in coming seasons, although he cautioned the club was likelier to be active at the trade table than in free agency this year:

"With free agency, it can be quite difficult when it comes to attracting the 26 to 27-year-old types of players and that's where we want to get to as a club.

"We're probably more in the trade space this year where it's probably a bit younger than the free agency space. We've got no doubt that we need to keep improving the talent on our list and through those two avenues that what we will try and do.

"We've identified areas of the ground that we need extra support in and there's real opportunity for players to come in and take those spots, whether it be from a draft like Harry (Sheezel) and George (Wardlaw), or from another club like Darcy Tucker or Griffin Logue."