North Melbourne's decision not to renew the contracts of Brent Harvey, Drew Petrie, Michael Firrito and Nick Dal Santo is an acknowledgement the club's list needs a "pretty good reset", chairman James Brayshaw says.

North announced on Wednesday the four veterans would finish up at the club at the end of 2016, with coach Brad Scott saying the decision was based not on form, but on the club's need to give more opportunities to its youngsters.

Brayshaw told Triple M on Wednesday afternoon North was coming to the end of "a footy strategic period" in which it had "overachieved" to make four finals series in the past five years and two consecutive preliminary finals.

The North chairman resisted suggestions the club needed a list rebuild, but noted the official AFL statistician Champion Data had rated its playing group the ninth-best in the competition this year.

"From the board down to the footy department, all we said is 'where are we going from here? What do the next five years look like?' And I think we needed a pretty aggressive reset to give our club the best chance of playing in and winning its fifth premiership," Brayshaw said.

"I think we need to get back to the draft, we need to get some really good quality kids into the place.

"We've got some already, but we need to add to that and we would be looking in this next five-year period to have a very strong on-field performance with sustained on-field success."

North opened this season with a club-record 9-0 run, but has since won just three of 12 games to slide from first to eighth on the ladder.

Brayshaw denied suggestions Wednesday's announcement was a sign the club had written off its upcoming finals campaign.

"We've got a final to play in two weeks' time, and we've shown in recent years that we've got great ability once September comes around to be better than nuisance value," Brayshaw said.

"There's absolutely no writing off 2016."