Watch Mick Malthouse address the media on the club's YouTube channel.

FOOTBALL can be a ruthless caper, and Mick Malthouse's team certainly showed no mercy for North Melbourne when it put the Kangaroos to the sword on Sunday afternoon.

But as his players celebrated their record-breaking 117-point win, the coach himself was in no mood to gloat.

In fact, he paused to reflect on what a gut-wrenching afternoon it was for his North Melbourne counterpart.

"You get a great deal of joy out of this," Malthouse said.

"I suppose in many respects it's great for the supporters and good for our playing group.

"But I feel desperately for Brad Scott because as a coach sometimes these things happen.

"I've been on the receiving end of these in my career and there's not a lot you can do.

"You can keep swapping players around, but luck seems to follow the other side. In this case, bad bounces seemed to go our way.

"I'm not detracting anything from our play, but we had the rub of the green and in many instances they perhaps didn't."

Malthouse was delighted with the relentless nature of his team's performance.

He was especially pleased with the ability of his players to use the ball efficiently despite the heavy rain that fell throughout most of the afternoon.

"It was a four-quarter effort and in conditions like that you'd don't always get that," he said.

"To win every quarter, and win the second, third and fourth reasonably comfortably, was great.

"I thought we were a bit lucky in the first quarter. I thought their 1.5 could easily have been 4.2.

"But we took our chances."

Dane Swan was among Collingwood's best performers. The star midfielder gathered 38 possessions, in the process showing the value of his trip to Arizona last month.

Nevertheless, Malthouse remains offended that some footy fans and pundits viewed Swan's sojourn to the United States as nothing more than a mid-season junket.

"I'm always bemused that people from afar, or outside, are prepared to pot-shot people and how much they spend," he said.

"I don't see the same people lining up to have a crack at Geelong about spending X amount of dollars in Brisbane or the Gold Coast or wherever they're playing next week."

Malthouse said Ben Macaffer, another player who travelled to Arizona, was expected to be recalled to the team in the coming weeks.

"He's on the absolute cusp of getting in the side thanks to his performances since he got back," Malthouse explained.

"He'd hardly played a game beforehand because of his (foot) injury."

Collingwood takes on Carlton in a blockbuster clash at the MCG next Saturday.

However, Malthouse was loathe to be excited about the prospect of the old foes doing battle in front of a sell-out crowd.

"I've walked off the ground for about an hour," he said. "I've hardly even got Carlton on my mind. In fact, I haven't.

"You blokes sit in the grandstand watching a game of football, and it doesn't matter who wins or loses. For me, it does.

"So my energies are directed straight towards the North Melbourne game, and I can't just automatically (click my fingers) and step in there and start thinking about the next week.

"I can categorically tell you it doesn't happen."