North Melbourne coach Brad Scott has refused to blame the umpires for his side’s gut-wrenching two-point loss to West Coast at Patersons Stadium on Friday night.

Two controversial decisions in the final minutes, both of which led to crucial West Coast goals, drew the ire of North Melbourne supporters after the match.

When Adam Selwood was awarded a free kick on the wing in the final minute, Scott was visibly upset. The Eagles immediately kicked the ball long inside their attacking 50, and Nic Naitanui took a towering mark before kicking the winning goal after the siren.

When asked about the Selwood free kick and another awarded to Luke Shuey just a few minutes from the end of the game, Scott would not say whether he thought North Melbourne had been unlucky.

“We will just focus on what we can control,” he said.

“There were some mistakes that we made defensively as well. I don’t know if they were mistakes, the umpiring decisions. I will focus on our mistakes and let the umpires’ directors coach up their umpires.”

It was a far cry from his outburst on his last regular-season visit to Patersons Stadium, when West Coast received several free kicks for high tackles. His comments saw several Eagles players labelled “duckers”.

West Coast was awarded 21 free kicks to North’s 17 on Friday night, with the visitors awarded the only five free kicks of the opening quarter as they jumped out to a 17-point lead.

“As a coach and for our supporters, I have to do my job and coach my players,” he said after the match.

“It doesn’t help our football team whingeing about umpires.

“You can ask the questions if you want, but you’re not going to get a response from me about the performance of umpires. Our supporters (and) footy fans in general can comment on that, but it’s not my place to comment.”

However, Scott did say he had been confused when his team missed out on a goal-scoring opportunity during the third quarter when Ryan Bastinac was adjudged to have played on to advantage.