"APPALLING" was coach Brad Scott's description of North Melbourne's effort in the first quarter of Friday night's loss to Geelong at Simonds Stadium.
He said the Kangaroos were outworked, which saw them outnumbered at contests and unable to apply enough pressure on the home side.
Scott said North Melbourne could have stolen the game had it managed to turn a last-quarter surge into something even more dangerous on the scoreboard, but the win would not have been deserved.
And he gained no satisfaction from the fact the margin was just 20 points at the final siren, despite Geelong threatening to win by seven or eight goals at one stage.
"That is what losers do. They sit and go 'Oh well, geez, it was a good effort in the end'. It was an appalling effort early," Scott said.
"When you dish up that sort of performance early on you can't walk away happy or satisfied. I'm not. The players are not. You can't accept that sort of stuff."
In Scott's opinion, his team still lacked total belief that they are up to beating the competition's best sides. He said that translated into inconsistency.
"It's clear at the moment our players look to me [to] have a fair amount of confidence and self-belief in what they can do but they are not absolutely 100 per cent convinced yet," Scott said.
"Until as a team we have players who are absolutely convinced their 21 other teammates are going to give up a level of effort against the best sides then we're going to have inconsistent performances."
In the past six weeks North Melbourne has won a game then lost the following week. It has also led at quarter-time just three times this season.
Scott said if he knew the reason behind the poor starts he'd be able to fix them but his frustration at the pattern was clear.
He praised Geelong forward Tom Hawkins' game and did not mince words when assessing the form of North Melbourne forward Majak Daw.
"He doesn't need a resting terms of physically but we've got to weigh up his value to the side. I've still got great confidence in the future but he is clearly playing like a rookie at the moment," Scott said.
"He is just a rookie making rookie mistakes. In the long term he'll be fine but we just need to make a decision as to what is best for the team in the short term."
North Melbourne travel to Perth to play West Coast in round 11 in what shapes as a critical game for the club's finals aspirations.
