Coach Brad Scott says North Melbourne aren’t unlucky – they’re just not good enough.

The Roos were beaten by Adelaide by nine points in Sunday’s AFL match at AAMI Stadium – their ninth loss by 16 or less points this season, including five defeats by four or less points.

“Close losses – you can look at things during the game that could have gone your way but didn’t,” Scott said.

“But the reality is, I don’t see us in the top four sides so we haven’t been unlucky this year – we haven’t been good enough.”

Scott couldn’t care less what tag was applied to his Kangaroos.

“To be perfectly honest, I don’t care what people think,” he said.

“All I care about is that our supporters know that we’re on the right track and that they should be really excited about the future.

“We haven’t been able to close out the close games and that is an area of improvement for us, clearly. But I think it’s exciting when we fix that.”

North slipped one spot on the ladder to 11th, three wins outside the top eight with games against Essendon, Collingwood and Hawthorn to come.

“We played the best sides this year … and every single one of those games have either beaten them or been right there with them,” Scott said.

“So it’s a matter of consistently performing across the whole game. We know we can do it, but we haven’t proven that we can do it over the four quarters.

“We’re a good contested ball side. We’re a good clearance side. We score well. Our defence is improving dramatically. But we have got to put all those things together.”