Brad Scott is confident North Melbourne’s midfield brigade can turn around the opposition’s clearance dominance from the opening two rounds.

The Roos’ coach admits the new 6-6-6 starting position rule has worked against his side so far, having conceded 83 points from centre bounces already. 

“We rank 18th for centre-bounce clearances and scores against from those clearances, so it’s hurt us initially,” Scott said on AFL 360.

“If you look at centre bounces, which we’ve clearly gone to work on over the last 24 hours, the margin between you clearing the ball and scoring, or them clearing it, is a fingernail.”

Scott pointed to Brisbane’s three goals in the final two minutes of Sunday’s game as a clear indicator of the impact the new rules can have.

“A lot of the time it’s completely random. We’ve got to go to work and take some of the random nature out of it,” he said.

Scott also spoke directly to Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley, who was also on the show, recalling a scoring blitz in the JLT series at Alberton Oval.

“We probably got too excited, Ken, in the game against you where we kicked seven centre bounce goals and you kicked five ... I think our midfielders thought, "jeez this is gonna be a new way of scoring". 

“I think our midfielders thought that was going to be an easy way of scoring … but we’ve been on the receiving end of it.”