It wasn't pretty, but North Melbourne coach Brad Scott lauded the resilience of his players after the Roos scored their first win of the AFL season.
And the fact that his team was challenged late and still found a way to defeat Gold Coast 16.11 (107) to 14.10 (94) at Etihad Stadium made it all the more satisfying.
The Kangaroos lost three games by five points or less as they slumped to a 0-5 start to the season and Scott will take an ugly win over a pretty loss every time.
"We've certainly played better this year than we did (against the Suns), but the result went our way so it obviously makes you feel a fair bit better," Scott said.
"We've played better but didn't get the reward ... I'm really pleased for everyone involved because I think it is genuine reward for the six weeks of effort.
"Even though it won't be (a game) we'll look back on and think that we were fantastic, we did what we had to do to win."
North hadn't won a last quarter this season before Saturday night's clash but finally found the composure under pressure that has eluded them to seal the win.
Scott has tinkered with his side's approach in a bid to ensure his players are fresher late in games.
While he was pleased to get the win, he still feels there is plenty of room for improvement.
"We've got a couple of guys in our team who haven't played a lot of footy with us, so there are things that we've probably coached really strongly in the past that maybe we've assumed they know," he said.
"And guys who do know better didn't have a good enough execution of the game that we wanted."
The Roos are still a long way back at 1-5 after six rounds, but Scott isn't ruling out a finals run.
"You just keep trying to win every game to qualify as best you can, so clearly the job's harder than it was at the start of the season," he said.
"But we're at the stage where we've just got to focus on the quality of footy we're playing.
"We were really confident if we continued to get the effort and play the way we were playing in the first five weeks that the wins were inevitable.
"That gets hard to believe when you keep falling just short, so hopefully we can start to build some momentum."
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