North Melbourne coach Brad Scott has foreshadowed player axings for the AFL match against Port Adelaide on Saturday after a performance last weekend he labelled “un-North Melbourne-like”.

Scott said the Kangaroos’ 18-point loss to the Western Bulldogs was the first time he had questioned his players’ effort.

And after a three-hour review this week he described as “extremely frank”, some players can expect to pay at the selection table ahead of the clash with struggling Port at AAMI Stadium.

“Over two and a half years, I’ve never questioned our players’ effort,” Scott said on Wednesday.

“With an inexperienced squad, I can tolerate inconsistency of performance because that’s something with youth you work on and they get better at.

“But I’ll never tolerate inconsistency of effort. That’s the first time we’ve opened ourselves up to the accusation that our effort was un-North Melbourne-like.

“We’ve seen tangible examples of players not giving the effort required, so we’ll address that.”

Scott said the players were shattered with their performance against the Bulldogs after a decent start to the season, and expects a response against Port.

“The biggest weapon a coach has in his armoury is selection, so that’ll be stringently looked at this week,” he said.

Port have won just once this season and desperately need to beat the Kangaroos to ease pressure on their coach Matthew Primus.