THE DEES struggled to match it against North Melbourne on Sunday, losing by 50 points on their home deck.

The Roos led the game for all four quarters, despite an early surge from Melbourne , who levelled the score towards the end of the first quarter, winning two forward half clearances, converting them both into goals.

Mick Stinear spoke to media post-match about the improvement required going into next week’s match against the Dockers.

“I think for us, contest and clearance, and being able to get our hands on the ball first was number one,” Stinear said.

“The glaring stat out of the game was the score from turnover, that was a significant difference.

“There is plenty to learn for us today, and a bit of a gift early on in the season on now knowing where we need to get to, having Geelong, Brisbane, and now North.”

There were still some positives to come out of the game, Stinear explaining that the loss was an opportunity to learn, knowing what they need to work on to move forward.

“We feel like we got a lot out of today, and we’ve still got a big part of the season to build and evolve,” Stinear said.

“Today we learnt a lot, in the second half we made a few little changes, try and learn a bit more about some people.

“We saw that in the first quarter, which was exciting, it felt like that was going to be the trend for the day, but we just couldn’t manage to maintain that level of intensity.

“Against quality [opposition], it felt like finals pressure and skill level, today was a great opportunity to learn a bit more about some of that chemistry and connection.”

Sunday’s match was a milestone game for Paxy Paxman, recording 75 AFLW games in her career. She made her mark during the match, winning five intercept possessions in the first quarter alone.

“It was great for the team to be able to celebrate [Paxy] before the game and hear from her partner,” Stinear said.

“She means a lot to this group, she’s got a great balance of competitiveness and ferocity on the training field and in the game, but then genuine care too.

“Lil [Mithen] said that some of her favourite moments of being in the red and blue have involved Paxy.

“Today, she gave us a bit of drive off of half back, but we needed to defend a little bit better as a group, and we needed to be a little bit more damaging with the ball to test a quality defence.”

Tahlia Gillard, who had four intercept possessions and held strong against tall forward Tahlia Randall, spoke to media on the team’s disappointing loss.

“They just beat us with the pressure and the contest game. They wanted it more, they were first to the ball, and they won,” Gillard said.

“Credit to them for the pressure they brought. I think that first quarter we really brought it to them, but we just have to bring that consistency across four quarters and play how we want to play.

“It’s definitely disappointing, we’ve been watching back how we can improve, and across the lines we just need to improve as a whole.

Against an unrelenting opposition, the Dees defensive group made an impact during Sunday’s game with Gillard praising her fellow teammates’ efforts.

“I feel like the defensive group as a whole are quite connected, so that was great to see on show,” Gillard said.

“Last week we played our game style down back, obviously they beat us on the scoreboard a few times but at the end of the day we played as best as we could, and we’re going to be watching [the game] back and how we can improve as a collective.”

Next week the Dees take on the Dockers in Perth, with the team having a clear focus for the upcoming match.

“We’ll definitely focus on connection, game style, and getting back to playing how we want to play,” Gillard said.  

“I feel like they took the game from us with their pressure, so that’s something we’ll be focusing on.”