Despite North Melbourne's unbeaten start to the NAB Cup, coach Brad Scott is far from happy with his team's form as the home and away season draws near.
The Kangaroos can qualify for the pre-season Grand Final if they beat Geelong this weekend and Adelaide beats Carlton, but Scott isn't satisfied.
"I'm into my fourth year as a coach now, so I'm really working hard on the grumpy coach pre-season attitude," Scott said on Friday.
"I've been pretty grumpy the last three weeks.
"We always want to be better; I wouldn't say we're in great form.
"We'll get a much better indication of that after tomorrow's game against Geelong.
"We've certainly worked on some things, and we're not doing those perfectly yet. I'm far from happy."
Scott nominated stoppages as his key area for concern, lamenting last week's final quarter effort, in which Gold Coast booted seven of the last eight goals.
"We really wanted to make sure our stoppage work was top-notch against the Gold Coast, because it probably slipped a bit last year…and we got badly beaten in the centre bounces in the last quarter last week, which allowed them to come back at us," he said.
"We want to be a good stoppage side, we want to be a good contested ball side, and I don't rate us in the top four in that area at the moment, so we've still got some work to do."
Scott said qualifying for the NAB Cup Grand Final wouldn't be a focus of the trip to Simonds Stadium, given other results would also have a say in the Kangaroos' finishing position.
"All we can do is win," he said.
"We can't control what Adelaide and Carlton do tonight, and we certainly can't worry about what Collingwood and Brisbane are going to do.
"So it's just going to be a matter of us taking care of our job, and the way the ladder falls, it falls."
