The majority of forwards would happily take a four-goal, four-mark game and call it a tidy performance.

Which goes to show how far North Melbourne forward Ben Brown has come, with coach Brad Scott admitting the Coleman medal leader "wasn't at his best today" when he did just that in the Roos' 33-point loss to Port Adelaide.

Brown, who had kicked 19 goals in four games to head the competition's goal-kicking leading into round six, was troubled by a strong one-on-one performance by the Power's defence on Saturday at Etihad Stadium.

His man was Tom Jonas, who played particularly well, but it was the way the Power consistently got numbers on him when the ball came inside 50 that caused Brown the biggest headache.

While he still nailed four majors, two of them came in the fourth quarter when the game was all but done in his least influential performance in five weeks.

"If that's his worst game and he kicks four, we'll take it," coach Brad Scott said.

"He wasn't at his best today, but he didn't get silver service.

"We'll continue to work on how we take the ball inside 50 because there were parts of the game where on the slower play they were able to get numbers across to him.

"They defended well one-on-one, so we were never concerned they were getting multiple numbers back because they weren't, on occasion they did, but they're a hard transition team.

"If you're getting numbers back against you, the opposition shouldn't be able to get forward on you, but they were able to do both today."

Brown's bag leaves the 25-year-old in the lead of the Coleman race, with Lance Franklin's absence this week because of a heel injury widening the gap to five goals between the two key forwards.

Scott said Brown remained a considerable threat even when under siege and wasn't perturbed by the suggestion the Kangaroos went to him too often despite his struggles with Jonas.

"I reckon he's a pretty good option, and [Jarrad] Waite and [Jack] Ziebell are good options too.

"Their defenders defended very well one-on-one.

"We'll take some lessons out of this in terms of our forward structure and what we can change when that's happening.

"I still think Browny in particular is a huge threat."

Waite kicked three goals but two were after half-time when the Power were well clear, while Ziebell was forced into the midfield at times when the Roos were falling apart at the contest.

While it appeared stand-in Port ruckman Charlie Dixon had the measure of Todd Goldstein, Scott said it wasn't as simple as looking at the hit-out and clearance numbers.

"It's an interesting equation, I'll have to go back and dissect it further," he said.

"We're plus-15 in the hit-outs, I think we're well ahead in first possession in clearances but we're down in clearances overall.

"So, I think very simplistically, we fumbled more than we usually would.

"It was a bit uncharacteristic today. The amount of times we fumbled and they were clean in the same passage of play.

"I wish you could tell your players, 'Hey boys, let's stop fumbling'.

"We just need to keep working on that to make sure we're cleaner in the contest."

Dixon, who will be relieved of his temporary role in the ruck next week when Paddy Ryder returns from an achilles injury, had 25 hit-outs to Goldstein's 38.

Meanwhile, Scott rated Majak Daw's 14-possession, five-mark performance as one of the Roos' best, and they "couldn't expect any more of a five-game defender".

He also said Shaun Higgins was feeling better after his serious concussion last week and the Roos would be guided by medical advice this week as to whether he's available for Saturday night's clash with Sydney.

Higgins watched Saturday's loss from the coaches' box.