North Melbourne coach Brad Scott has hailed the "unbelievable resolve" of his players after Sunday night's thrilling comeback win over Richmond at Etihad Stadium.

 

The Roos were outplayed in the first half and trailed by 35 points at the long break, but showed incredible belief to storm to a 28-point victory.

 

A heart-pumping 19 minutes to start the third quarter saw the Roos slam on eight unanswered goals.

Brent Harvey sparked the onslaught at the three-minute mark and three goals to Drew Petrie, plus singles to Ryan Bastinac, Jack Ziebell, Robin Nahas and Ben Cunnington, created the most remarkable of momentum swings.

 

It broke the Tigers' resolve after what was a fanatical first half from Damien Hardwick's men and lifted North back within a game of the top four at 7-4.

 

"It's mixed emotions, I suppose," North coach Brad Scott said post-match.

 

"Relief is one emotion that comes to mind, but I thought it showed an unbelievable resolve and character of our group to be outplayed for most of the first half.

 

"Then to be able to respond and get your leaders to stand up and take control of the game.

 

"They exceeded my expectations in the third quarter, so I won't be putting any ceiling on what we can do in a quarter of footy anymore because we were hoping to be back somewhere near level pegging at three-quarter time."

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Despite another slow start from North in a big match, Scott said he was measured at half-time.

 

"I suppose the assumption would be that we tore strips off them – that would have been the easy thing to do," he said.

 

"A big spray was on the tip of my tongue, that's for sure.

 

"At half-time it was mainly about identifying the things we needed to fix, as boring as that sounds.

 

"And making sure that we remained composed. There's no point telling your players to remain composed while screaming at the top of your lungs.

 

"I asked for the leaders to get the game back on our terms and they did that really well."

 

Scott said the third quarter "would be close" to the best North has played in his 100 games as coach.

 

He praised Drew Petrie's return to form after he booted four goals, which came after Majak Daw was substituted at half-time with only four touches.

 

"We were six goals down, we just needed to make a change. We needed to restructure our forward line, which was ineffective," Scott said.

 

"It was a risk, but it was a risk we had to take.

 

"We wanted to use Drew a bit more and we were a bit dysfunctional going forward."