Near enough not good enough
A closely-fought defeat against an unbeaten team interstate certainly wasn't enough to satisfy Brad Scott.
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A closely-fought defeat against an unbeaten team interstate certainly wasn't enough to satisfy Brad Scott.
The North Melbourne coach spoke after the match on Sunday and expressed his disappointment over the 25-point loss.
"We are not satisfied with that. We expected a better result and a better performance," Scott said in his media conference.
"We probably just got shown the difference between where West Coast are and where we are at the end of the day."
The Kangaroos were right in the match going into the final change before falling away late but according to Scott, the game was already lost.
"We really got touched up around the footy and around the clearance area in the first half.
"When you come over to Perth to play West Coast you expect a really solid contest and you just can't give them that sort of start."
Scott pointed to the performances of several of his midfielders as positives but said there simply weren't enough at their best.
"I thought Ryan Bastinac outplayed Daniel Kerr which is no mean feat. I thought (Jack) Ziebell and (Andrew) Swallow were good, but it's not just individuals, it's more the collective."
"Some of the roles that we had set today players performed them really well, but we didn't an even enough contribution across the board."
Eagle Shannon Hurn got off the leash in the second half to have a big impact on the result, with Scott saying the Kangaroos' first-half plans needed to be change due to other parts of the team-structure falling down.
"Aaron Edwards did a terrific job on (Shannon) Hurn early," he added.
"We had a choice to make. Our forward structure wasn't operating properly, so unfortunately we had to drop the Edwards/Hurn match-up which was working for us. When something's not working and you change it, it has a domino effect and Hurn with those two goals, it really hurt us.
"You can't have everything unfortunately."
Having been overlooked for the second week running, Todd Goldstein's place in the line-up has been a hot topic of discussion, but Scott says his chance will come if he continues to perform.
"He's still a really important part of our present and future, so I wanted with the team (in Perth).
"He was strongly considered this week, and he'll be strongly considered next week."
VIDEOS: Brad Scott press conference | Match highlights | Wells brilliant goal | Harvey from the boundary
Can't view the videos? Visit the NMFC YouTube channel