NORTH Melbourne coach Brad Scott is "setting the bar higher" for his team after jumping to sixth spot on the ladder, declaring the Kangaroos are yet to play their best football this season.
After temporarily falling out of the top eight over the weekend due to other results, the Kangaroos leapt ahead of Richmond and Geelong on Sunday with a 35-point win over Melbourne at the MCG.
Rather than worrying about holding their spot in the top eight in the final month of the season, Scott said the Kangaroos would attack their last four games with aggression to see what was possible in 2015.
"We've got to set the bar higher and we're going to do that," Scott said after the team's fifth straight win.
"If you start playing defensive footy or you start even thinking of protecting your position you get opened up.
"We're looking at how we can get better, not at how we can guard against poor performance.
"I think our best footy is still ahead of us in 2015."
The Kangaroos sat in 11th place after 13 games, but their most recent "workmanlike" win has them sitting just one game behind the fourth-placed Western Bulldogs.
They face St Kilda at Blundstone Arena next Saturday before playing out the season at Etihad Stadium against Fremantle, the Western Bulldogs and Richmond.
The team's Achilles heel has been its second quarters, losing that period for the fourth straight week on Sunday when Melbourne came out after quarter-time and kicked four goals to two.
"Our players get frustrated with their lack of four-quarter effort for sure, but as I've explained to them, we're not going to change that this year," Scott said.
"We're going to have to do that over a long period of time until we're spoken about in the same sentence (as Hawthorn and Fremantle)."
While young star Jesse Hogan (four goals) ignited the Demons on Sunday, recruit Shaun Higgins was the Kangaroos' match-winner, winning nine of his 31 possessions in the fourth quarter and kicking two crucial goals.
"He's in career-best form and the players love him. He's a real leader on and off field," Scott said.
"I thought he organised things really well and did what good leaders do and stood up when it mattered.
"His output has been really consistent all year."
The addition of players such as Higgins and Jarrad Waite, who kicked three goals, meant there was less pressure on veteran duo Brent Harvey and Drew Petrie.
"We're not a team that can say, 'Hey Boomer' come out and win the game for us, or Drew Petrie'," Scott said.
"We've had a bit of that in the past.
"Now we've been really big on combined effort and that Drew and 'Boomer' can have a massive impact on the game when they do what they need to do to fall into the team structure."
