North Melbourne's wealth of young talent was outstanding as they opened the AFL NAB Cup with a shock 14-point win over Geelong.

The reigning pre-season and regular-season premiers trailled by 46 points midway through the third term on Sunday at Etihad Stadium and North then withstood their comeback to win 2.11.11 (95) to 2.10.3 (71).

Matt Campbell, Liam Anthony, Ben Warren, Sam Wright, Jack Ziebell and Levi Greenwood all had prominent roles in the Kangaroos' win and all have made their AFL debuts in the last three years.

It was the ideal way for North to start their new era, having moved into their new headquarters during the off-season and Brad Scott taking over as head coach.

"We know what these guys are capable of ... the wider football community probably don't realise the actual talent we've got," said assistant coach Darren Crocker.

"The people within the football club know what's there and it's only going to be a matter of time before they bring it to the attention of the wider football public.

"Brad's always said there are no limitations on these guys, we hope they just grow and come on quickly." North looked to have put the game beyond the Cats when they kept them scoreless for 32 minutes either side of half time.

But the Cats stormed back with seven unanswered goals, reducing the margin to only one point early in the final quarter.

The Kangaroos then kicked the last two goals of the match.

"It's nice, you probably don't ever expect to get 40-odd points up on the reigning premier halfway through the third quarter," Crocker said.

"We felt the effort, the intensity our guys were playing at obviously knocked Geelong back on their heels a little bit.

"But they showed, the quality side that they are, to be able to bring it back to within a point.

"It was good for our guys to steady and get the win ... we really wanted to come here and have a win." Crocker pointed out North had three or four weeks on Geelong in their pre-seasons.

The Kangaroos also had the bulk of their best side playing, whereas the Cats were missing six players from their premiership team, including retired captain Tom Harley.

Still, the Cats were particularly unhappy with their second term and senior player Jimmy Bartel had the team in a huddle on the ground before they went into the rooms at half time.

"We're a little bit disappointed obviously with how we played at times ... we let ourselves down with a 15-minute patch in that second quarter," said Cats assistant coach Brenton Sanderson.

"At half-time we obviously spoke to the players about that, they seemed to be a little flat-footed in that second term.

"It just shows you how quickly we can get back into the game when we started to play the way Geelong can play."

The Cats are likely to regain Matthew Scarlett and Darren Milburn for Saturday's bushfire benefit game against Richmond in the Victorian country town of Yea.

Joel Selwood and Corey Enright were best for Geelong, while Mitch Duncan was the best of their younger players.

North will return to Etihad Stadium next Sunday for their Cup quarter-final against the Fremantle.

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