North Melbourne coach Brad Scott says his young side will learn plenty from being thrashed by Collingwood, a team he rates as one of the AFL's top premiership contenders.

Scott said the Kangaroos' round two 104-point belting from St Kilda had proven their best lesson of the home and away season so far and Saturday night's 66-point loss to Collingwood was another.

He said North's effort was acceptable, but his side lacked the Magpies' "know-how" and running power, aspects that would develop with more experience and training.

"Sometimes you can get a lot more out of a loss, in terms of where your group is headed, than a win," Scott said.

"Sometimes, if you scrounge a win, you're a little bit lucky ... then you don't get a lot out of that in the future.

"The two games this year I think we've learnt the most from are Fremantle in the NAB Cup and St Kilda in round two.

"I'm sure we'll learn a lot from this game too.

"Our group will never accept a performance like that, never ever, but we've got to learn from it, move on and improve."

The Magpies' 23.19 (157) to 14.7 (91) win was never in doubt from early in the second quarter, Collingwood's ability to turn defence into attack, slick ball movement and array of scoring options overwhelming.

It was their fourth consecutive win - all by more than 50 points - and Scott said any opposition would find them hard to hold back.

"They're certainly a contender, they've now got their playing group really believing they can match it with anyone in the competition and certainly beat anyone in the competition," he said.

"Like all good sides do, they created opportunity, but more than that they really punished us, they put a lot of pressure on us, we couldn't withstand that pressure and then they punished us on the scoreboard.

"If they keep playing that way, they've just taken it to another level in terms of inside 50s and scoring power, so if they can keep doing that, they'll be hard to stop."

Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse offered only grudging praise to his side, saying apart from having 13 goal kickers, including five to Steele Sidebottom, the performance was unremarkable.

"Outside of that, I don't think it was a great game, quite frankly."

They face Fremantle, with whom they share a 6-1 record, at Subiaco on Friday night.

"They're all tests, it doesn't matter who you're playing. But to go over there, they've obviously got their tail up, it's a big test," Malthouse said.

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