NORTH Melbourne is not about to put a greater emphasis on blooding youngsters despite its increasingly remote finals prospects, according to coach Brad Scott.
North climbed to 13th on the ladder after defeating Carlton in round 10, a win that was the Roos' fourth from their previous five games and put them just a game outside the top eight.
Since then, however, North has suffered disappointing losses to Richmond and St Kilda and now sits 16th, two games and 10 percentage points behind eighth-placed Essendon.
After embarking on a list rebuild at the end of last season following the exits of veterans Brent Harvey, Drew Petrie, Daniel Wells, Michael Firrito and Nick Dal Santo, North has introduced six debutants this season: Mitch Hibberd, Declan Mountford, Braydon Preuss, Jy Simpkin, Sam Durdin and Ed Vickers-Willis.
Between them they have played 22 games this season, with only Vickers-Willis (seven), Simpkin (six) and Preuss (four) playing more than two.
Of the 12 teams that competed in round 13, only Geelong and West Coast fielded older 22s than North's (average age 25 years and seven months), while the Roos' team was the sixth most experienced (average games played 94.5).
Scott reiterated on Thursday North remained primarily focused on pushing its finals claims.
Asked whether North might reach a point this season where it put a greater priority on blooding players, Scott did not categorically rule out such a switch but suggested it was highly unlikely.
"If you know anything about North Melbourne we'll fight and bite and scratch until we mathematically have absolutely no chance (of making the finals) and then when we have mathematically no chance we'll fight and bite and scratch until the end of the season," Scott said.
"That's the way we go about it."
Scott also dismissed the suggestion North would be better served looking towards the future over the remainder of 2017.
"There's another word for that that the AFL has used in the past," Scott said.
"We believe firmly that our culture is our differentiating factor in the competition. You look back through history and no doubt fighting to just qualify for the finals or just missing the finals has affected our draft position.
"But we look back to what's the fundamental of our club and it's the Shinboner spirit and it's the culture that separates us from everyone else and we can never do anything to jeopardise that."
Scott said North had gone away from the style of football it wanted to play in the losses to Richmond and St Kilda, and had spent this week trying to rediscover it.
"It's obviously disappointing not to win the last two weeks, but the most disappointing thing for me has been the way that we've gone about it," Scott said.
"It's lacked a bit of Shinboner identity, it's lacked a bit of the way we've gone about it earlier in the year, so we're really looking to get back to that style and that involves our ball movement, it involves the way we want to pressure the opposition with the ball.
"They've both been lacking in the last two games and we really want to work on that again today and show that on the weekend."
Scott expects Jamie Macmillan (hamstring tightness) and Jarrad Waite (head knock) to be fit to play against the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium on Friday night.
"'Waitey' will be fine pending training today. He pulled up really well, he was a bit dazed straight after the game but he's recovered really well," the Roos coach said.
"Our plan is for him to train fully today and be available for the weekend.
"And we expect the same for Macmillan, but I don't want to be made a liar (later) so I'll throw in pending training. But we expect them to be right."
