North Melbourne must put the bitter disappointment of their 55-point loss to lowly Gold Coast behind them or run the risk of having their "pants pulled down again" against Geelong this week, according to Kangaroos veteran Brent Harvey.
The hot-and-cold Kangaroos produced arguably their worst performance of the year at the weekend against the previously bottom-of-the-ladder Suns and missed a golden opportunity to stay in touch with the top eight.
Instead, they now find themselves six points adrift of the eighth-placed Crows with a 6-7 win-loss record.
It continued a familiar theme for the Roos who headed into 2015 full of expectation on the back of a preliminary final appearance last year, only to become one of the league's most inconsistent sides.
Harvey can't put his finger on why the Kangas have been so indifferent this season and can understand why it looks as though complacency has crept in after they finished in the top four last year.
But the 37-year-old is confident his team can bounce back strongly against the Cats and hasn't given up on a strong finish to the season and another finals appearance.
"We are extremely disappointed as a group," Harvey said at Arden Street on Tuesday.
"Fortunately it's Tuesday now and we've got to put that [loss to Gold Coast] to the back of our minds because if we take that football into playing Geelong this week we'll probably get our pants pulled down again.
"That's the challenge. We are too inconsistent and to challenge good teams you can't have that inconsistency week in week out, quarter in quarter out.
"It's a hard thing. Is it a mindset? Is it attitude? I'm sure it's not our game plan or anything like that.
"Everything is fixable for us. We sit back on a Monday and watch the review and everything in the review we've got control over and that's the beauty of it.
"We can turn that around ... when we've got our backs against the wall unfortunately we probably play our best football like that."
While Harvey remained bullish about North's chances to play finals, he rubbished suggestions that his team have a "soft draw" in the lead-up to September.
"We know how hard it is, I spoke about how even the competition is. You can't drop your guard," he said.
"Have we done that? I'm not too sure but there's no easy games any more. People look at our draw and say we've got a softer second half of the draw, but for us it's a week-by-week prospect now and if we don't put our foot on the accelerator we're going to get left behind."
Harvey also understood why critics believed North Melbourne have gone backwards this season after "loading up" with mature-age recruits Jarrad Waite and Shaun Higgins in the off-season seemingly to launch an assault on a premiership.
However, the star midfielder defended those recruitments and the age profile of the playing list despite the fact it is the second oldest in the AFL and they appear a long way off a flag.
"I think they've been pretty good inclusions," Harvey said of Waite and Higgins.
"Take me out, we'll probably be the second-youngest [team in the AFL]," he joked. "We've also got an abundance of young guys coming through that are exceptional young players.
"Unfortunately our [2014] draftees all got injured this year. All three of them had operations so we haven't seen any of them on the park, but we need those older guys around.
"Michael Firrito is teaching our younger defenders how to do it so when he retires they can just step into his shoes."
Harvey insisted he hoped to play on for a 21st season next year and expected to come to an agreement one way or the other by round 16 or 17.
"That's certainly the plan," he said. "Right now I'd love to say, 'yep I'll go on'. The way the body and the mind is right now, I'm ready to go for sure."
In three rounds' time the four-time All-Australian is due to become just the fourth player in history to play 400 games and he admitted the milestone was becoming harder to ignore.
"It's a tough one because every interview you do you're talking about the 400 and things are starting to approach now," he said. "You do think about it a little bit in the back of your mind."
