North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson was left to lament his team's inability to maintain a standard of play for all four quarters in the 52-point loss to Gold Coast.

Much like his counterpart Damien Hardwick pointed out, Clarkson said kicking 3.7 to the Suns' 6.1 in the first quarter with a strong breeze at their back was costly.

When Gold Coast put the foot down late in the third quarter, the Kangaroos wilted.

"They got on top in clearance and territory and the dam wall opened," Clarkson said.

"I'd like to think stoppages are a strength of our game and for two-and-a-half quarters it was, but for the last quarter-and-a-half it wasn't at the level it was early.

"Is that fatigue, is that structure, is that the heat? Who knows."

KANGAROOS v SUNS Full match coverage and stats

Clarkson said the problems ran deeper than just clearances though.

"We need to go deeper into games with the fundamentals," he said.

"We talk about stability behind the ball, it's not just that we didn't defend well. Sometimes we had the footy and just gave them the ball back far too easily and you can't defend behind that.

"If we can't get the basic fundamentals consistent over four quarters then we're going to battle to beat sides.

"We're showing enough in patches … that we can do it. We're not capable of doing it for long enough just yet."