North Melbourne caretaker coach Brett Ratten has seen "elements of success" in his side's AFL campaign despite their losing streak reaching 12 matches.

Winless since round two, the Kangaroos sit second from bottom at their mid-season bye.

Ratten will lead a review of the year to date in coming days, with head coach Alastair Clarkson still away from the club on personal leave.

"There's elements of success," Ratten said after Sunday's 21-point defeat to the Western Bulldogs.

"When you win two games, you can't sit there and say it's been a success, but I think there's a fair bit of growth there.

"The exposure that some of the individuals have had will help us moving forward."

Inexperienced players George Wardlaw, Harry Sheezel, Bailey Scott, Will Phillips, Eddie Ford and Tom Powell have all provided some hope for the future with impressive performances this season.

Ratten insisted the mood within the Kangaroos' playing group was still upbeat as they looked to take further positives from their remaining nine matches of the season.

"They can see the little wins," Ratten said.

"If you just look at the end result of every game, you're going to get pretty flat, but there's been some growth.

"There's really good communication in reviews around how we're going, what it looks like, how we want to play.

"The education part is still there and they can see what we're trying to do ... sometimes we see it for 60 or 80 minutes but we're not seeing it for 120 and that's the bit that's letting us down."

North only managed half the number of forward entries that the Bulldogs generated (36-72) at Marvel Stadium on Sunday but Ratten was most concerned about the lop-sided tackle count (49-77).

"We'll do a bit of work on it," he said.

"It was sort of around the contest; we weren't getting through the contest at them and that was the difference between the two teams.

"If we fed back, they pressured us, and if they fed back, we just gave them too much time and space to use the footy."