Nick Dal Santo hopes an honest heart-to-heart on Tuesday will be the catalyst for North Melbourne to put Sunday's 77-point loss to Adelaide in the past.

Dal Santo said it was hard to explain why the players weren't raring to go after such a long pre-season, but felt positive ground had been made in a "thorough" meeting.

Coach Brad Scott said after Sunday's defeat the players were in for a tough week on the track and they would "get what's coming to them".

Wednesday's session was light – with their main hit-out to come on Thursday – but Dal Santo said the candid debrief, in which Scott was one of the most honest participants, already meant they would learn from what went wrong.

"It was actually positive, it's almost like a confession, you go there and you work through it, and it is really positive when we walk out," Dal Santo said on Wednesday.

"It was everything from the way that we use the ball to the way we defend it when we didn't have it –stoppages were really disappointing.

"When you lose by that margin first up, there's enough time to work through it and I'm hoping we'll put it into work this week and be ready to go.

"We didn't feel we gave ourselves a good account of the pre-season we've done, and the way we went about it from a players' point of view was really disappointing.

"We let the club down regarding people expecting a lot of things from us, mostly our supporters.

"We're looking forward to getting back out there. Talk is cheap … and we'd really love to be out there getting back into it."

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He conceded team leaders needed to do more when Sunday's game was blown out in the first half.

"We were really disappointed that when things weren't going well for us, we weren't able to change the course of the game," Dal Santo said.

"I think it's as simple as getting your hands on the ball.

"It sounds like it's easy … but it's just about controlling the game for certain periods and if you have to slow it down for five to 10 minutes, then we do that.

"But you all saw what happened on the weekend; we just weren't there when we were needed and the game was over at half-time."

However, Dal Santo said giving feedback was an area the Kangaroos had improved in during the year and half he'd been at the club.

"It's not saying that we don't give feedback in the game or within training but I just feel the group's becoming more aware of situations," he said.

"The feedback is just understanding the game, knowing how to communicate with people and delivering in the right manner, and I feel we've come a long way.

"The peer-to-peer feedback is a lot better. There's a lot of guys who know their performance was disappointing and they're hurting this week.

"That's the good thing about football. We'll get a good chance to resurrect it come Sunday afternoon."

Captain Andrew Swallow predicted on Monday there could be a few changes at the selection table, with the Roos likely to reassess the structure they took in against the Crows.

Dal Santo named Mason Wood, Robbie Tarrant, Robbie Nahas and Majak Daw as selection possibilities, while Ben Brown could come into calculations after being a late withdrawal on Sunday.