North Melbourne key forward Drew Petrie says it’s high time for the Kangaroos to embrace expectations.

North Melbourne were among the most disappointing AFL performers in round one, going down to Essendon by 39 points in a margin that flattered the losing team.

The Kangaroos have been widely tipped to be among the competition’s big improvers in 2014 after only playing one finals match in coach Brad Scott’s previous four years at the helm.

“Expectation and pressure is a good thing because if you want to become a really good side and a consistent finals side then you’re going to have the spotlight on you a lot of the time,” Petrie said on Monday.

“It’s a great time for the team to try and learn to deal with that.

“At the moment, not having had that expectation for a lot of years, maybe it’s something different for the group.

“But I’m sure our guys can handle it.”

Essendon had 159 more possessions than the Kangaroos in the Etihad Stadium clash.

“It’s as though we were a bit stunned throughout the game,” said Petrie.

“We didn’t win the contested ball, which was where it started.

“When you can’t win the footy, you’ve got to be able to get it back off the opposition and we couldn’t do that either.”

North Melbourne hope to have Todd Goldstein fit to take on the Western Bulldogs on Sunday after it was confirmed the ruckman suffered no structural damage to his shoulder in a first-quarter incident.

North Melbourne are yet win a round-one match under Scott, but Petrie said the coach was measured in his response to the heavy loss.

“I’ve seen him a lot more savage,” he said.

“He was pretty disappointed and rightly so, but certainly constructive in the way we went through our review.

“It wasn’t just yelling and screaming at blokes or abusing us – it was constructive and educational.

“We’ll go and train what we need to fix up and hopefully put it into place on Sunday against the Bulldogs.”