Brad Scott was keeping things simple in the wake of North Melbourne's fourth-quarter fadeout against Gold Coast, saying his team was outworked and didn't adapt to the wet conditions as well.

After kicking four unanswered goals to level the scores late in the third quarter at a sodden Cazalys Stadium, the Kangaroos were hammered in the final term.

Gold Coast won the contested possession count 60-38, clearances 13-7 and kicked 2.5 to 0.2 to run away 16-point winners.

The North Melbourne coach was not making any excuses.

"I thought we were out-worked at times," Scott said.

"I thought we were hard and tough, but so were they.

"They did move from contest to contest better than we did and I thought they handled the conditions better than we did.

"We were as prepared for it as we could be, we knew exactly what we were going to get.

"We'd like to have Gold Coast's (JLT) game in Townsville and in the wet at Southport … they were very well prepared for it and they adapted very well and just did it better than us.

"We got smashed in the second and fourth quarter around the contest, and we were badly beaten in uncontested marks.

"It was a night of quick kicks out of the contest and to their credit they reacted first on a number of occasions."

After trailing by 24 points at half-time, North Melbourne fought back thanks largely to Scott's move of pushing skipper Jack Ziebell from the midfield to the forward line.

Ziebell kicked two of his team's four goals to level the game.

Along with strong showings from Ben Cunnington, Scott Thompson and Shaun Higgins, Scott said he was pleased with the performance of his experienced players.

"I thought all in all the leaders stood up," he said.

"Todd Goldstein had a really good first half but when the ball was camped in the Gold Coast's forward half in the last quarter it enabled Jarrod Witts to set up behind the ball and get a fair bit of the footy.

"All in all, Goldy was good in the first half and third quarter.

"Pleasingly, some of the young guys stood up. Jy Simpkin was impressive and showed us enough to think he's going to be an integral member of our midfield this year."

Scott said the soaked field and torrential rain made no difference to the result.

"It certainly didn't make for the greatest spectacle, but in a way it got back to the bare bones of football - can you win a contest, can you will yourself to a contest, can you transition and get numbers across to the ball?

"I thought Gold Coast did that better than us."