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NORTH Melbourne coach Brad Scott has spoken with AFL officials to query aspects of the umpiring in the Kangaroos' loss to West Coast last Sunday.

Scott had been scheduled to give a 10am press conference at Aegis Park on Wednesday, but his senior assistant Darren Crocker stepped in, saying Scott was at a meeting with AFL football operations manager Adrian Anderson and umpiring department officials.

But an AFL spokesman later said Scott had not met with AFL officials on Wednesday, nor had any meeting been scheduled. However, Scott had spoken with Gieschen on the phone at about 11am, the spokesman said.

Subsequently, a North spokesman said Scott had received a phone call from Anderson on Tuesday to discuss the umpiring that led to the Eagles receiving 29 free kicks to the Kangaroos' 15.

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During that call, Anderson had sought Scott's opinion on the free kicks paid against his team for head-high tackles and invited him to raise any other queries arising from the game with AFL umpires manager Jeff Gieschen and umpires' coach Rowan Sawers.

The spokesman said Scott had phoned Gieschen and Sawers on Wednesday to seek clarification for, among other decisions, the four free kicks awarded against ruckman Hamish McIntosh for infringing against West Coast's Dean Cox.  

Earlier, Crocker had said: "[There were] a couple of issues that came out of that game on the weekend that (Scott) would like to get some clarification on," Crocker said.

As contentious as the tactic of players dropping to their knees or shrugging their shoulders to draw high tackles had become, Crocker said the competition was now well aware of it and had to adjust.

Croker said North's coaching staff had spoken to players about the Eagles' use of this tactic before last Sunday's game and had practised a tackling technique to combat it. But he said North's younger players, in particular, had failed to properly execute their tackles.

"As much as it was frustrating on our part, our guys need to learn to tackle with the right technique," Crocker said.

"A lot of those free kicks were actually there because some of our younger players … didn't go low enough and didn't employ the right technique."

Crocker also acknowledged Eagles players such as Ashton Hams and Luke Shuey had only been able to draw free kicks for high contact by beating their North opponents to the ball.

And Crocker downplayed the need for the AFL to intervene on the issue, saying teams would simply have to adjust when they went to tackle certain players.

"We also need to educate our players that against certain players you need to go really low, lower than perhaps normal, so they can't employ that technique," he said.

Asked whether the difficulty opposition teams faced at Patersons Stadium wasn't so much the free kicks paid to the WA teams but the free kicks not paid to visiting teams in similar situations, Crocker acknowledged umpiring there was sometimes inconsistent.

"I think from a spectator perspective and a coaching perspective we're more inclined to perhaps put up with free kicks that are missed, than free kicks that are paid and then you miss out on a similar free kick," Crocker said.

"It comes back to that word consistency. If there's consistency across the board you don't get anywhere near as frustrated as a coach and I imagine as a supporter group supporting your team.

"But when there's discrepancies with the decisions and where some are getting paid and some aren't, that's when I think the frustration comes in."

Nick Bowen covers North Melbourne news for AFL Media. Follow him on Twitter @AFL_Nick

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