North Melbourne's finals push ended in disarray, with coach and captain complaining about umpires and reporting procedures and the club's midfielders left gasping for breath.

Sixth-placed St Kilda crushed the ninth-placed Kangaroos 19.21 (135) to 10.10 (70) as Brad Scott's men crumbled in the face of strong opposition from a finals-hardened side.

North's 172cm captain Brent Harvey was shut down by Saints tagger Sean Dempster and Harvey made several attempts to convince the umpires that he was receiving rough treatment off the ball at Etihad Stadium.

Two of North's young gun midfielders, Levi Greenwood and Jack Ziebell, were reported for rough-conduct offences against David Armitage and Nick Riewoldt.

While Ziebell was one of North's better players on the night, his head-high bump was a poor effort and symbolic of an undisciplined team performance.

"The whole reporting on the day of the game just needs to be thrown in the bin because it's a complete waste of time," Scott said on Saturday night.

"The match review panel deals with that, the video review deals with that.

"And we've seen instances this year where umpires make mistakes, the match review panel throw it out but you still get a free kick paid against you.

"We need to make umpires' jobs easier, much easier, not harder."

Scott said the Saints had proved they're a better side than North, who face fellow non-finalists Richmond in a battle for pride in round 24 next Sunday at Etihad Stadium.

"It's these games you're in the competition for and at the moment we're not holding our end up," Scott lamented.

"Man for man (St Kilda) competed harder for longer."

North were leading by 20 points midway through the second term and in a flash found themselves 14 points down at halftime after conceding five successive goals.

"We just looked out on our feet halfway through the second quarter which was a real concern," Scott said.

"When the intensity goes right up it exposes us a little bit there. It's good because some glaring deficiencies get opened up when the heat's really on so we'll address those.

"We now have a nucleus of players that need to take the next step and at the moment some have, some haven't, so time will tell whether the others will step up.

"We've got a really important game next week to prove to ourselves and to our supporters that that effort is not totally reflective of where we are at as a side, because at the moment we're just getting a little bit beaten up by better sides."

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