NORTH Melbourne coach Brad Scott won’t regard the 2010 season as a success if his youthful team misses the finals, as now appears likely.

The Kangaroos have fallen six points and 20 percent behind eighth-placed Hawthorn after suffering a nine-goal thumping at the hands of St Kilda at Etihad Stadium on Sunday.

“Whether we make finals or not, we’ve got to improve on today’s performance,” Scott said at his post-match press conference.

“I just keep getting back to the fact that we’re ninth, and ninth for a reason.

“We just need to improve on those performances against the better sides.”

While North Melbourne has defied the pre-season expectations of many footy pundits, when Scott was asked if he’d give his team a pass-mark, he replied: “No, because I think we’re capable of better than that.

“It’s very difficult, but I think the 22 that ran out today are capable of a lot better than they showed.”

However, Scott remains confident the Kangaroos can climb into the top half of the ladder next year.

“I don’t think we’ve got too far to go to bridge that gap, to be honest,” Scott said.

“I thought we’ve shown in patches that we can compete against the best, but we’ve still got a little bit of a way to go when it comes to standing up when the heat’s really on.

“It’s certainly not through a lack of effort. The effort’s certainly there.

“We’re just letting ourselves down with little things - little skill execution errors, little concentration errors - and the good sides are exposing us.

“I think things are really, really clear for our group that until we can tighten those things up under real pressure, we’re going to remain ninth.”

Scott was particularly frustrated at the number of 50m penalties and downfield free kicks his team gave away against St Kilda.

The lapses handed Nick Riewoldt several of his seven goals on a platter.

“It’s a really ordinary sign, to be honest,” Scott said.

“It’s deflating for the whole team when you work so hard then you give up easy goals like that through poor discipline.

“Some of them were there, some weren’t, but it was a lack of discipline nonetheless.”