IN A SEASON defined by narrow losses that have at times beggared belief, North Melbourne coach Brad Scott finally allowed himself a 'what if' moment in the rooms after his team's 11-point win over Collingwood at the MCG on Sunday.
Previously this season, Scott has quickly shifted his focus to North's next match, no matter how galling the defeat the week before.
And North has tasted more galling defeats this year than most teams in VFL/AFL history.
Ten of its 12 losses were by 16 points or fewer, five of those by four points or less.
Several came after the Roos let slip what would normally be match-winning leads – none worse than their one-point loss to Adelaide after leading by 30 points midway through the final quarter.
Still, the Roos finished just one game out of the eight, their finals hopes not dying until Carlton stole a one-point victory over Port Adelaide on Saturday night.
"Every time I've been asked the question about the 'what if' I've answered honestly and said we're focused on the next opponent and the way we want to play," Scott said after Sunday's game.
"But coming down into the rooms after this game it's the first time this year I have felt, 'What if'.
"But we look at the big picture and we're really confident in the direction we're going. If you include Essendon, we've beaten five of the top eight sides this year, run Hawthorn very close on a couple of occasions, beaten some very good sides and played some pretty good footy."
Scott said football's key statistics showed North had improved in 2013 despite failing to back up its 2012 finals appearance.
The North coach pointed to the Roos' No.1 ranking in the AFL for disposal efficiency and clearances, No.2 ranking for contested possessions and its percentage of 119.5.
But he said the Roos' decision-making under pressure was the area they most needed to improve in 2014.
"There's no doubt we've improved, but if our players ever needed a lesson in little things count in professional sport, well we've had it taught to us this year," Scott said.
"Clearly the thing that has let us down is our ability to make the right decisions under pressure, to be able to halt momentum shifts in games and I thought we did that really well today.
"Now if we'd been able to do that earlier in the year who knows? But professionals and winners in any field of endeavour don't look back, they look forward.
"We'll just learn our lessons, have a really strong pre-season and get better again next year."
Scott said North's list was "pretty well balanced", saying only that the club would target "quality" players in the upcoming free agency, trade and draft periods.
North would attempt to be active in October's free agency and trade periods, Scott said.
"I think that we've got a responsibility to do that," he said.
"In terms of free agency it's very, very difficult to extract players from their current club. I certainly hope it's the case when we have a lot of players in that position.
"But that being said, we're doing our due diligence, we've spoken to a lot of different managers and we'll try and improve our list."
Scott said North would not rule out recruiting opposition players at or nearing 30 years of age.
"I don't think (we) would rule anyone out. We'll look at complementing our list and complementing what we've got," Scott said.
