According to Todd Goldstein, North’s current crop of young players is the best the club has had in more than a decade, and the veteran has seen plenty of players through the doors at Arden St.

“It’s the most exciting young group I’ve had coming through so we’ve just got to make sure we’re teaching the right habits and making sure we’re not skipping the steps, we’ve got to make sure they understand what it takes to become good players,” Goldstein told RSN.

“We all want that lineal improvement and in reality with a young group, that’s not what happens … there’s lots of ups and downs and as long as you’re slowly getting better.

“We’re very understanding of where we are, we’re on a journey of trying to get better each week and there’s going to be dips.

“The last couple of weeks has shown that we are improving, it’s given the coaches some vision to work with what we’re doing really well so you can see that general improvement.”

The All-Australian ruckman said the potential at the club is clear for everyone to see.

“I’ve trained with these kids now for three or four months, you understand how good they could be and I think that’s the exciting thing.

“They’ve got potential but they’re not there yet so all I can do is try keep their energy up and try keep their excitement and get them wanting to get better coz that’s the key to it.

“You can see how good these kids could be if they keep working, so it’s all about trying to keep their heads up and trying to make them focus on the areas they can change rather than the things they can’t control.”

Despite being winless so far, Goldstein said the young Roos are showing improvement.

“Going down to the Cattery (Geelong) I think we had 13 players under 34 games and 15 under 50 games so it was a very, very young side going to one of the more intimidating venues that you can play at,” he said.

“There was times where Geelong threw a number of shots at us and we were able to absorb them and still keep coming and staying with them.

“We can see the improvement there we just need to do it for longer and more of it and that’s the key to any group … I think we are getting there and Geelong was as close to a four quarter game as we’ve played.

“We just got to keep building on that understanding that we are still learning … we’ve got 12 new coaches or something so we’re still learning an entire new game plan along with trying to get these young guys in.”

An influx of new coaches at Arden St brings about a new game plan with the group still working hard on execution.

“We have to take the scoreboard out of it whether you’re up by 100 or down by 100 it’s about playing the way the coaches want us to play and having our game style out there to be seen,” he said.

“The more reps we get of moving the footy the way Nobes [David Noble] wants us to move it of defending the way Blakes [John Blakey] and Nobes have set us up to defend.

“Those little in games stuff is the most important thing and I think if we do that for four quarters we will win games but it’s about making sure we’re understanding of our roles and executing our roles and if we do that that will give us our best chance to do that and we will win games.”