NORTH Melbourne would have been "irresponsible" to hang on to midfielder Levi Greenwood after the club was scooped in the NAB AFL Trade Period by Collingwood's big-money offer, coach Brad Scott says.
Greenwood, who was one vote shy of winning the Kangaroos' best and fairest in 2014, joined the Magpies via a trade after the Roos failed to meet his contract demands.
Scott said the club was left with no choice, as keeping the 25-year-old ball winner, who was also courted by the Western Bulldogs, would have blown the club's salary structure.
"We understand the competitive nature of footy these days, and we would have loved to have retained Levi," Scott told radio station SEN on Wednesday.
"But with the number of inside midfielders we've got on our list, and certainly the TPP (total player payments) structure that's in place, to match the offers from the Bulldogs and Collingwood would have been irresponsible.
"Some of the offers put to Levi would have distorted our salary cap."
Greenwood played 11 games for North Melbourne across 2012 and 2013 and was "coming off a pretty lean couple of years" when the Kangaroos made their first contract offer early in the season, Scott said.
From there, he went on to average 25 possessions in 22 games, also tallying more than four inside 50s and four clearances a game.
"Levi's footy just went through the roof, he kept getting better and better and better," Scott said.
"The scope and length and the financial consideration of that contract [offer] was increased throughout the year, but as Levi kept improving other clubs got involved."
North Melbourne snared young key defender Daniel Nielson with the pick No.25 it received in exchange for Greenwood, further strengthening its tall stocks.
After years of appearing thin in the key positions, Scott said he would have a lot of welcome selection headaches in 2015.
"If we've got every single one of our key forwards and key defenders up and going, some are going to miss out," he said.
"With Jarrad Waite coming in and Drew Petrie, Aaron Black, Majak Daw, Ben Brown, Mason Wood … we've got some great options now.
"Every team would probably ask the question, who's going to replace their main key forward, and that's been us with Drew Petrie for a long time.
"Hopefully now North Melbourne supporters can see the succession plan in place."
