North Melbourne defender Daniel Pratt became the club's latest casualty on Friday night when he injured his knee in the loss against Collingwood.

Pratt, one of the club's two deputy vice-captains, 'tweaked' the medial ligament in his knee and faces one to two weeks on the sidelines, Laidley said.

North faces Port Adelaide and Geelong in the next fortnight.

Pratt's injury comes just a week after serious injuries to captain Brent Harvey, out for three months with an elbow injury, and highly-rated youngster Lachlan Hansen, who will miss four to six weeks with a hamstring tear.

The absence of Pratt and Hansen also leaves the Kangaroos' light on for tall options in their back half.

The maligned Shannon Watt, who had little impact in the 52-point defeat against the Magpies, and Nathan Grima may have to fill the breach.

Laidley said Matt Campbell, who missed this week due to a hamstring strain, was a likely inclusion next week but midfield playmaker Daniel Wells was only a 50-50 proposition.

Laidley said the club's injury list left it with few options at the selection table.

The coach could not fault his team's endeavour but was critical of its over-reliance on handball.

North handballed more often than it kicked. Of its 377 possessions, 209 were by hand.

He said Collingwood registered 13.8 on the scoreboard after 'we'd done the hard work, won the football and we just gave it back to them'.

"We may have won the same amount of ball but our desire to want to handball when we were moving the ball quickly and had free targets or space ahead was really disappointing," Laidley said.

"Both our second and third quarters we ended up with more handballs than kicks. When we won the ball we were away, we were coming through halfback and we turned the ball over."

He said North's forwards presented well and therefore could not be blamed for the team's overuse of the ball.

David Hale was out of form, Laidley said, but 'he'll turn it around'.

Hale, who had 12 touches, 12 hitouts and was goalless, had little influence on the game playing as a ruckman-forward.

He kicked 37 goals last year, including a bag of eight against Geelong, but has managed just seven from the opening six games of 2009.