CARLTON is not the first side and certainly won’t be the last that is completely dismantled by the AFL Women’s reigning premiers, but even Blues coach Matthew Buck conceded North Melbourne was “next level” compared to his third placed side. The Blues looked best placed to tackle the unbeaten Roos having won four of their first five games, but the gap in the class was evident for all to see in the 53-point belting.

North Melbourne made it 18 straight wins with no loss in sight, running rampant in a 12.7 (79) to 4.2 (26) result at Arden Street Oval. For another game, the Roos won all four quarters and racked up a ridiculous 115 more disposals, 21 more marks, 34 more inside 50s, 13 more clearances and bullied the Blues on the inside (plus-28 contested possessions) and outside (plus-76 uncontested possessions).

“You just see where the next level is to be honest,” Buck said. “Fundamentally the Kangaroos are really great, they don’t fumble the ball too often, their ability to get he ball from inside to outside, that’s what we’re aspiring to be.

“We’ve seen glimpses of that from our team this year and we’ve played some scintillating footy which we’ve enjoyed and today we didn’t quite get there today with that, but we’ll handle this with maturity and take the lessons that you need to, see where the next lesson is and keep getting better.”

The Blues coach said the Roos were a “really mature, high performing side” and had been for more than a year, and that there were minimal ways in which Carlton could get control of the match when North Melbourne was in such strong form.

“They, in every phase of the game, probably outplayed us today and absolute credit to them, they play an unbelievable system which tests where you’re at as a football side,” Buck said. “We’ll take some little lessons out of each phase I think, in particularly around the contest I think they really owned us there which gave them field position on the back of that, and then you’ve got to come through them all, and that tested us today.”

Though the scoreline was bad, Carlton kicked a couple of goals in the final term – North kicked four – to at least show some great fight to finish off against the benchmark team.

“Some of our young players today stood up for us,” Buck said. “I thought Poppy Scholz actually had some impact on the game. Throw her forward to give her some looks that way, takes a fantastic mark and kicks a goal. Sophie McKay‘s involved in the game, and Maddy Hendrie whose developing as a full-back, I think there were 55 inside 50s for the Kangaroos and she just continues to compete all the time.

“It’s a little resilience test when you play the Kangaroos, you’ve got to put what happens behind you and continue to turn up, and I didn’t think our girls put up the white flag at all, I thought we continued to play it out.”