Senior Coach Luke Beveridge spoke to the media following the Dogs' 23-point loss to the Kangaroos. 

Here's what he had to say: 

On where the game was lost 
 
We got the ball inside 50 early and the writing was on the wall a little bit around keeping it there and taking some chances. I thought their back end dominated, a few too many intercept marks and we were chasing again on team defence … similar to last week. 
 
I think the stoppages inside 50 - they were better than us in that regard. They scored from there, we didn’t defend well enough. Obviously (Paul) Curtis was quite active around there, we had an assignment that didn’t work. Then in our end they came out of there too easy, our working together and our layers were just a bit off. 
 
There were some boys early in the game who probably were searching for their game and couldn’t find it so we shuffled things around a little bit. Pleased with the perseverance, getting back into it and then couldn’t quite come over the top. 

 
We weren’t as watertight behind the ball as we have been. There are times when you take the ball forward, it looks like a great opportunity for you and unfortunately we fell asleep on the anticipation phase of the game and they came through us a bit easy. 
 
There were some impressive things about (North’s) game. The competition will keep challenging you … and as much as you’re favourites on paper based on ladder position it can bely what’s actually in front of you. 
 
We were hoping for a bit more as a group around centre bounce, we didn’t get it. You’d have to say overall we lowered our colours through that area of the ground from a collective point of view. Last week it was a stalemate between us and Fremantle, I’d say North Melbourne got the points tonight through that area.
 
Another learning night, a disappointing one because there was something at stake tonight around at least being certainties to play one more game and now that’s up for grabs again. 

 
On whether energy levels were low:
 
I didn’t feel like the group was flat. There’s no doubt early in the game when you think of situations where the pressure was on, the ball was in dispute, we let them out and it was hard to stop, they scored from those situations around the ground in the turnover game. 
 
Younger players … are learning what it’s going to take to be influential in this competition. There can’t be any excuses from the week before. Yeah it was a Perth game, we came back, six days (break), they were five days out of Launceston so cry me a river, there’s no excuses. We ran the game out okay, they were just the better team on the night. 

 
 
On positional switches: 
 
(If we’re) getting rolled through a division, a midfield division in particular, we’re going to change things, so at that point in time it was Tom (Liberatore) who came out of there. We needed someone to go on the wing. Tom’s a very good endurance player, he can really churn, get up and back, he kicked a goal for us from the wing. 
 
We also had to move Jordan Croft into that second ruck position because (Rory Lobb) had gone back. Through the shuffling it meant Tom with his experience went out on the wing, that looked okay, Tom held his end up in the role. 
 
The younger boys who went through that midfield area, (Ryley Sanders) and Joel Freijah, even a little bit of (Rhylee West) and Cody Weightman, we’ve just got to keep pushing for growth there and giving those guys exposure. When the game was on North Melbourne’s terms it made sense to make some changes. 
 
James (O’Donnell) has had a really improved year, he’s been so important for us. He’d be one of those players who you could swing forward because he can go there. With Buku (Khamis), we bit down on that hard because we didn’t really want to move Buku because he’s been tremendous down back as well. 
 
It wasn’t a crisis but in a game in which the opposition is holding momentum and are playing some good cards, you’ve got to change it up. James was solid again, (Cooper Hynes) seemed like he was pretty good on the wing again, Lachie Bramble as a high half-back… players had reasonable games but North were pretty good tonight and we couldn’t match it for long enough. 
 
 

On the contrast between early season and recent form: 
 
It was good to win those close ones at the start of the year. There was a period where we lost our spine, we lost James O’Donnell, Rory Lobb, Tim English, Jordan Croft, Sam Darcy and then Tom Liberatore, so we lost a pretty core group from the middle of the ground. So it took us a while to recover from that. 
 
In recent times it’s been the half-back brigade that’s been affected in Bailey Dale, Connor Budarick so it forces you to move players around. Bailey Williams has been a stalwart on the wing but we’ve had to play him back because we need some creativity and drive and vertical play from him. So it’s just forced us into some change. 
 
North Melbourne were pretty impressive last week against Hawthorn, the competition will keep challenging you no matter what. At the moment, (as) I’ve been saying all along, we’re looking for improvement in various areas and individuals as well and if we don’t get it it’s going to be difficult to challenge at the end of the year. 
 
But as I just said to the playing group, I’m their number one supporter, I’m their number one backer. From tonight’s game all we can do is recover well and look forward to the next challenge. At least we’ve got ourselves to this point where destiny’s still in our own hands so as far as our own internal expectations go, we’re working our way through it. 
 
We want to be an improved team, tonight we improved a little bit on the offensive game, even though we burned a lot of stuff it was better than last week. So we seek improvement again against Carlton (next week).