Even after the Kangaroos were sliced open by a premiership favourite at the MCG on Saturday night, 19-year-old Sam Wright said immediately after Collingwood’s 66-point win, “I still don’t reckon we’re far off. The scoreboard didn’t show it but we don’t think we’re far off.
“We stay really positive. We’ve got a good young list, our game plan is solid, our structure is solid, we just need to keep executing it and stay positive.”
For some those comments may seem preposterous, but Wright’s emotion was earnest, acknowledging at times his young teammates not only matched it with the flag fancy, but were on top.
In fact, during the first quarter North dominated for a sustained period, however, it failed to score and only mistakes at the end of the term gave Collingwood the lead.
“We let ourselves down," Wright said. "We’ve got a lot faith in our game plan it is just executing that, but we won’t accept that loss.
“They beat us in patches. We had really good patches we’re we probably could have done a bit more on the scoreboard but as I said we’re staying positive, get back to training this week and come up for Adelaide next week.”
Coach Brad Scott also wanted to make the point that the loss was unacceptable, however, he said this was how his inexperienced team would learn and evolve.
And he reminded people how quickly the fortunes of a team can change.
“My first year at Brisbane we finished last, three years later we won the premiership,” Scott said.
“Everyone remembers the good times. I remember the bad times just as much as I remember the good times. These guys need to learn from poor performances. At times you can get a lot more out of a loss, in terms of where your group is headed, than a win.
“Sometimes if you scrounge a win, and you’re a little bit lucky and you don’t perform well and you have a little bit of luck on the way…then you don’t get a lot out of that in the future.
“The two games that I think we’ve leant the most from is Fremantle in the NAB Cup and St Kilda in round two and I’m sure we will learn a lot from this game too.”
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