A conciliatory Brad Scott has taken responsibility for North Melbourne's AFL woes, pinpointing his new-look side's failure to gel as the key reason for their dreadful start.
Having blooded seven new players in their first three games, including five off-season recruits and two draftees, the Kangaroos have been well off the pace and remain winless before Saturday's clash with Adelaide at Marvel Stadium.
Hopes had been high that the injection of Jared Polec, Aaron Hall and Jasper Pittard would lift North back into finals contention.
But the Roos were smashed by Fremantle in round one, then squandered solid leads over Brisbane and Hawthorn in rounds two and three respectively, prompting club great Wayne Carey to blast his former team's "deplorable" skills.
With frustration growing in North Melbourne's supporter base, Scott admitted his revamp of the best 22 had been overly ambitious.
"That's been, in hindsight, a bit of an error on my behalf ... I probably brought them all in at the same time because I anticipated that we could gel a lot quicker," Scott told reporters on Wednesday.
"I can make excuses for some of the boys at the moment because it's not ingrained in them.
"It's taken us a long time to build a system of play that all our players now find second nature.
"For the new boys, it's been a slight challenge for them and for the guys that have been around for a while, it's also a slight challenge to get a good understanding for how the new guys play."
The Roos are set to welcome back onballer Jed Anderson from a hamstring injury and could make further changes, with backman Sam Wright among those pressing for a recall.
Tall forward Mason Wood could come into the side to assist spearhead Ben Brown at the expense of back-up ruckman Tom Campbell.
"We've got to weigh up do we get more benefit in the ruck versus a genuine key forward to support Browny," Scott said.
"I think the capability is there on our list. We've got more options available to us arguably than we've had in a very long time.
"We've just got to get that mix right."
