NORTH Melbourne does not need to regroup or panic following its round one loss to Essendon and it is still capable of playing finals in 2014, according to stand-in captain Drew Petrie.
Coach Brad Scott labelled the Kangaroos "horrific" on Friday night after their much-hyped season-opener finished in a humbling 39-point loss.
Petrie said the players had been "stunned" by their opponents, and they deserved all the negative feedback they had received since.
However, after Monday morning's review, the 31-year-old said drastic action was not required after one match.
"There's no need for a regroup, it's only round one," Petrie said.
"Yes we lost our first game, we lost four points on the weekend, but it's not as though it's happened for eight weeks in a row. It happened for the first game, and that's it.
"We're fine, we got reminded of a lot of things today in our meeting and we'll go out and train and change a few things.
"There's no need for regroups or crisis meetings yet because it's only round one."
Having played one final in five years, the Kangaroos are expected to feature in September this year and Petrie said: "we still think we're good enough".
However, after losing 10 games by 16 points or less in 2013, he said the evidence provided in round one was that the team hadn't improved in pressure situations.
"We get our first chance to prove that wrong on Sunday against the Bulldogs," he said.
"Expectation and pressure is a good thing, because if you want to be a consistent finals side then you're going to have the spotlight on you a lot of the time.
"It's a great time for the side to learn how to deal with that.
"At the moment, not having that expectation for a lot of years, it's something different for the group, but I'm sure our guys can handle it."
Petrie echoed Scott's concerns from Friday night that the team was comprehensively beaten in contested possessions (156-109) and stoppages (52-30).
He said concentration and work-rate were both issues through the match.
"When you can't win the footy then you've got to be able to get it back off the opposition and we couldn't do that either," he said.
"We just allowed them to hit up on the lead to often, we weren't accountable enough one-one-one and we didn't beat our direct opponents.
"It's a big build-up round one and you've got 32,500 North Melbourne members and 42,500 at Etihad Stadium on Friday night and you turn up and you play like that, so we deserve all the criticism that came our way."
