North Melbourne coach Brad Scott is ready for more results like Sunday's after the Roos were pipped at the post by Geelong at Etihad Stadium.

North led 25 points at three quarter time before allowing the Cats back into the contest, as Geelong's George Horlin-Smith kicked the match-winning goal with under one minute to play to see his side home by just one point.

"We're trying to build a style that's going to potentially leave us vulnerable at times, because the ability to sustain our effort is going to be a challenge," Scott said.

"What we need to do is understand we have really good, athletic young players and they have terrific endurance. We've recruited around that pretty strongly.

"But one thing I know is when you're 18, it doesn’t matter how athletic and how good an endurance you've got.

"This is a brutal game and they don't have the resilience yet to sustain the effort for long enough."

Scott highlighted North's departures from last season as players who stand up at the end of games, and admits his side just aren't there yet due to inexperience.

One youngster who did impress however was ruckman Braydon Preuss, who was called up after regular ruckman Todd Goldstein was a late withdrawal.

Preuss had 13 disposals and managed to win 46 hit-outs, and Scott was more than pleased with the 21-year-old's output.

"I thought Braydon Preuss emerged today," Scott said.

"People probably thought through the JLT series that he emerged, but this is a different game, the AFL regular season.

"He got his hand to the ball really well. I think we were roughly plus-33 or something in hit-outs and minus-three in first possession, so you put that down to a little bit of synergy with Preussy.

"Our inside mids haven't played a lot of footy with Preussy, or do you put it down to (Joel) Selwood and (Patrick) Dangerfield reading the ball pretty much as well as anyone."

If Goldstein returns to the line-up next weekend, Scott didn't rule out playing the pair alongside Majak Daw as three genuine ruckmen.

"We're just going to pick the best team we think lines up against the opposition each week, also with a view to what our long term looks like," he said.

"We'll keep working with those guys (and) make them multi-positional."