North Melbourne coach Brad Scott returned to Arden St on Monday and will sit in the coaches’ box this Saturday night.

Scott was forced to watch Friday’s win over Richmond from hospital after being diagnosed with a viral illness on Thursday night.

“I was feeling fine Wednesday night, Thursday morning felt a little bit sick,” Scott told NMFC.com.au.

“I thought I’d be fine. I pushed my flight back a little bit later to try and recover but on the way to the airport got significantly worse.

“Both club doctors here were fantastic. They got me straight into hospital to have me seen and ruled out any major, life-threatening type illnesses which was pretty good to get those things ruled out straight away.”

Scott praised both the players and the staff for the 'seamless' nature in which his absence was handled.

“The leadership group stood up and took control of the game, so certainly it made it a bit easier to watch (from a hospital bed),” Scott said.

“We’ve worked really hard in transitioning our group through to a player driven culture where the players take control and under the guidance of Darren Crocker and the other assistant coaches they did that really well.”

Scott compared his experiences from last year in watching Crocker take charge during his absence following back surgery.

While he never planned to miss games this season, he said the processes in place at the club were strong.

“In a lot of ways it’s fantastic we’ve got some processes in place that everything was really seamless. Darren Crocker knows what to do now, he’s very experienced taking over in caretaker roles, he’s done it three times for us now.”