NORTH Melbourne coach Dean Laidley says a mid-season heart-to-heart from the team has been pivotal in his side's turnaround, which has resulted in five consecutive wins after it defeated the Western Bulldogs by 20 points at Telstra Dome on Sunday. 

Laidley said after the Shannon Grant off-field indiscretion, which resulted in a one-match club enforced suspension, the Roos got their season back on track.

"We had a bit of a cracker of a break, if you can remember rightly," Laidley said.

"There was a bit of stuff going on, so we sat down and thought: 'Right, we can keep going through the rest of the year to-ing and fro-ing, which we'd done a little bit in the first half of the year or we could really set ourselves to make an impact on the year’.

"It's a credit to the boys that they've turned it around and they're playing some pretty good consistent footy now.

"There was a fair bit that happened at the footy club, with the Shannon Grant thing and that was the tip of the iceberg and there were a few other things going on, so we sorted those things out.

"The whole playing group has been able to redirect the ship or set sail in the right direction."

Laidley said Grant's ability to bob up and kick back-to-back goals deep in time-on during the final term, when the Bulldogs challenged, was a fine effort.

"You don't expect that anymore, because Shannon Grant is not the player that he was three or four years ago, but he takes a good player and helps Matty [Campbell] and Lindsay [Thomas] no end and he was terrific today," Laidley said.