SHAUN Higgins says it might take the remainder of the season for North Melbourne to fully redeem itself from its 77-point thrashing by Adelaide in round one.
The Roos were humiliated by the Crows at the Adelaide Oval in the opening round, but bounced back last Sunday to demolish the Brisbane Lions by 82 points at Etihad Stadium.
North ruckman sets the Gold standard
Brad Scott was pleased with his team's "emphatic" response to the Crows loss, but said in his post-match press conference it would take his team at least a few more weeks to prove it was better than its round one performance suggested.
Higgins agreed with his coach's assessment when he spoke with reporters at Arden Street on Tuesday morning.
"I don't think we'll redeem ourselves from that performance in one, two or even four weeks' time," Higgins said.
"It's what we do for the remainder of the season and (there's) a really good challenge this week for us (with Port Adelaide) and over the next few weeks and the remainder of this year.
"We're not going to get too carried away with the (Lions) win just as we didn't get too down about the loss.
"We just took out of it what we needed to improve, spoke about it, had a really good discussion last week, bounced back and we'll continue to do that for the remainder of the season."
Although North's performance against the Lions was impressive, the visitors were undermanned, with skipper Tom Rockliff and key defender Daniel Merrett sidelined with injury and young tall Michael Close forced out of the game in the first quarter after rupturing his left anterior cruciate ligament.
The Roos' credentials will face sterner tests over the next six rounds with games against Port Adelaide, Geelong (Skilled Stadium), Hawthorn, Richmond, Essendon and Fremantle (Patersons Stadium) to come.
Higgins expected a "top-shelf" test from Port despite its 0-2 start to the season, saying the Power had played "really well" in their losses to top-four contenders Fremantle and the Sydney Swans.
He also acknowledged that the Roos' upcoming draw was challenging but said the top six teams from last year were in the same boat.
"Looking across the board for probably all the top four or six teams from last year [the draw] is interesting and that's probably why the ladder is the way it is at the moment," Higgins said.
"The top sides from last year are coming up against each other now and it makes for a pretty exciting draw.
"It's a challenging block of four weeks for us but I think we'll just look at this week and we'll take it, as they say, one week at a time."
Higgins believes the biggest lesson the Roos had taken out of their round one loss was that they would lose if their pressure was down even a couple of per cent.
"It's amazing the pressure that's gone on in the AFL across the board, and the sides that bring the heat and bring the pressure on the ball and the opposition come away with the wins, and we weren't able to do that round one," he said.
"We were able to do that last week and we look forward to the challenge of doing that again this week."
