North Melbourne are still fighting for the finals after defeating the in-form West Coast Eagles BY 40-points at Blundstone Arena in Hobart on Sunday afternoon.

The Eagles were held to just one goal in the second half and suffered their biggest loss of the season.  West Coast eased into the game and edged ahead of the Kangaroos at the first break, but the cold conditions seemed to suit the Kangaroos as they bounced ahead for the rest to the game for their 12.9 (81) to 6.5 (41) victory.

Shaun Higgins kicked two goals in his 200th game and  Paul Ahern and Ben Cunnington lead the way with 37 disposals apiece.

The Eagles will be without two big names; Josh Kennedy ruled out with soreness and Luke Shuey headed back to Perth for personal reasons, while Will Walker made his debut for North Melbourne.

Hear how the game played out…

“We probably didn’t come to the fight as much as what we would’ve liked,” Jeremy McGovern told 6PR after West Coast’s loss to North Melbourne.

“We tried equalising, we tried doing a lot of things but at the end of the day, we got beaten by a better side on the day,” Adam Simpson said after the game.

West Coast Eagles Assistant Coach Daniel Pratt told 6PR before the game Josh Kennedy was close to playing.
“Missing guys like him, you’d rather have him playing but he was given to the last minute, we thought if he traveled late that would probably suit him better and obviously he hasn’t come up so we made that decision yesterday and (Jack) Petruccelle comes in which is great.”

“More importantly we’ve hung our hat on the way we’ve played and gone about our footy this year and we went away from that last week. Our group, since Scotty’s been here, they’ve had a really good ability to respond to disappointing results so that’ll be the challenge today,” North Melbourne Assistant Coach Josh Drummond told 6PR before the game.