North entered the clash after impressive wins over Melbourne and Hawthorn, but slumped to a 3-4 record after being comprehensively beaten by the red-hot Pies.
Petrie, who is sidelined with a foot injury, said captain Brent Harvey addressed the players immediately after the game to remind them how far they’d come this season.
“I thought it was a really good move,” Petrie told BigPond Sports Weekend on Sunday. “He just reinforced about the progression that we’ve taken in the last couple of weeks and this was a big hurdle coming up against Collingwood.
“The way we lost wasn’t great at all, but he just didn’t want the boys to be dropping their heads and thinking, ‘It’s the end of the world’.
“He wanted the group to learn a lot about what Collingwood did to us, because three or four years ago I think they started to develop a new list.
“We can see the end result of where we want to get to as a club.”
Petrie was due to miss the first two rounds of the season through suspension, but a foot fracture late in March extended his spell on the sidelines.
Initially forecast as a six-week injury, Petrie said he was now likely to return in round 11.
“I was hoping to be back by round nine, but after running this week for the first time in seven weeks, I think I’m realising now that it’s going to be maybe a week or two longer than I’d first hoped,” he said.
“It’s healing well, so from that point of view it’s going really well, but just the twisting and turning that AFL requires, I think it’ll be a couple of weeks longer.”
Article from bigpondsport.com
