Scott: We failed dismally

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North Melbourne coach Brad Scott says he has no regrets about setting the bar high for his Kangaroos only to watch them come crashing down in a humiliating 87-point loss to Collingwood.

Scott was outspoken in the lead-up to Saturday's match at Etihad Stadium, challenging his team to improve their poor recent record against top-four opposition.

But his strategy backfired badly as the flag favourites extended their advantage at every break to win running away.

"I was more than happy to put it on our players and put them under pressure today," said Scott.

"It was an opportunity for our club to stand up and be counted and ... we failed dismally."

"It's a bitterly disappointing performance."

"We've been obliterated in contested ball and when you kick inaccurately you get absolutely dominated around the fall of the ball."

"We're trying to shed this image of a young, developing football team and we did nothing to shed that image today."

"The opposition, their young players played really well, our young players couldn't handle that pressure."

"We've talked about bridging the gap between the top four sides from last year ... but clearly that gulf still exists."

Scott conceded his players probably don't genuinely believe that they can match it with the competition's leading sides, but he said the club's coaching panel needs to take its share of the responsibility for Saturday's result.

"We chose to play Collingwood a certain way because we wanted to take them on at their own game," he said.

"There's no point going down in an honourable loss, I don't think it helps us in the long term."

"We want to take Dane Swan on in the midfield, we want to take Scott Pendlebury on, but we fell well, well short."

"We've got to turn that around quickly."

Scott said Collingwood has put some space between themselves and not just North Melbourne, but the entire competition."

"They're a cut above," he said.

"It sounds like a ridiculous thing to say, but we played a lot better this week than we did last week (in going down to West Coast by four points), and there's an 83-point difference in the result."

"They are clearly the best team in the competition at the moment, their pressure's outstanding and we couldn't stand up to that pressure."

Scott said the fact that veteran pair Brent Harvey and Brady Rawlings were among club's best on Saturday was an indictment on the club.

"We're not going to get to where we want to go if we're continually relying on the same guys every week," he said.

"We need the younger guys to step up."

"This will sting them and this will hurt them but it's going to mean nothing unless we go back and rectify it in two week's time (after the bye) against Fremantle."

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