White picked up 11 possessions in his first AFL game and afterwards he was adamant the Roos will give a better account of themselves in their last four home-and-away games of the season.
“I think for a half, 22 of us came together. Then in the second half we dropped off, which is not good enough,” White said.
“But there’s no reason why we can’t serve it up to the best sides. We showed that in the first half today.
“We’ve got to learn from our mistakes. Nothing’s over until it’s over.
“We’re not going to drop off. We’re going to keep trying to learn and we’ll take those things into the game against Fremantle [next Saturday].”
North Melbourne remains ninth on the ladder, four points and almost 20 percent behind the eighth-placed Sydney Swans.
But coach Brad Scott is trying to avoid talk about September.
“It feels like a real sense of déjà vu every time I come in here,” Scott said at his press conference at Etihad Stadium.
“Sneaking into the finals doesn’t interest me. We’ve got to play to play footy that’s capable of winning finals and that [effort against the Bulldogs] was not capable of winning finals.
“We’re ninth for a reason. They’re in the top four for a reason.”
But the big loss to the Bulldogs didn’t take all the gloss off White’s debut in blue and white.
Having spent the past two seasons in the VFL with North Ballarat, the 19-year-old was happy to have finally graduated to the big time.
“Amazing. Dream come true, I guess,” he said in the rooms after the game.
“I wish it could’ve been perfect, but there’s always little mistakes that you make.”
