North Melbourne have come out swinging in defence of Alastair Clarkson with football boss Todd Viney lashing “disrespectful” criticism and “coach bashing” of the Kangaroos mentor.

North have lost their past four games by an average of almost 59 points and reached a season-low with an embarrassing 82-point defeat to Carlton on Good Friday.

Clarkson has come under fire, but Viney, who worked with him at Hawthorn, scoffed at any suggestion the four-time premiership mentor had lost his edge.

“I find it amusing, really. I find it probably disrespectful,” Viney said on SEN radio.

“This is not only to Clarko but this is something that’s pointed at senior coaches all the time. It’s almost like a sport.

“... There is a sport around putting undue pressure on senior coaches in my view.”

Viney pointed out 2025 was the first season where Clarkson hadn’t also been dealing with the fallout from the Hawthorn racism saga.

“Not many clubs can really perform at their best when they’ve got such distractions going on,” Viney continued.

“... He’s had enormous distractions, unwarranted criticisms, judged unfairly - it’s taken an enormous toll on him over those two years.

“Eventually we’re into this third year, two years and six games in.

“He’s a rejuvenated person, back to his old self, a lot of energy, seeing the game as well as he’s ever seen it.”

Viney was adamant Clarkson was well supported and seeing the game “as well as he ever has” but the Kangaroos were in the early stages of building their game.

“The criticism is really unwarranted,” he said.

“I think it’s a bit of a sport, the coach-bashing thing.

“It’s a tall-poppy syndrome which is the Australian culture - we pick on the guys who have been successful and in time ultimately bring them down.”

Ahead of Saturday’s away clash with Port Adelaide, Viney was adamant the Kangaroos were strong and aligned across the board and wouldn’t deviate from their plans.

“A lot of things are going well so we won’t be fractured, we won’t fall into jumping at shadows with all the noise,” he said.

“We understand the game gives us nothing and we need to deserve to win games.

“No-one’s going to give us anything and we don’t expect it, we expect to cop our right whack with performances like the weekend.

“But we won’t hear that everything we’re doing is not right because there is a lot of positive things that are going right.

“We need to stick fat and our supporters and members over a long period of time have tried to do that.

“They’ve tried to move us, relocate us, but we’re not going to bend. We stay the course.”