North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson has called for all incidents that cause confusion around goals to be treated like score reviews after his team was denied a crucial set shot by an umpiring error late in Saturday’s loss to Fremantle.

The Kangaroos had started to apply pressure on Fremantle when Matthew Johnson made a critical error with eight minutes left and the Dockers leading by 19 points.

Johnson marked the ball about 50m from North Melbourne’s goal and turned to kick backwards to James Aish, but the ball went over his teammate’s head and hit the base of the behind post on the full.

Goal umpire Daniel Hoskin immediately signalled a North Melbourne free kick but field umpire Paul Rebeschini disagreed. He called for a consultation with Hoskin and the nearest boundary umpire and the decision was changed to a boundary throw in.

Replays showed the ball clearly hit the post on the full, but the umpires couldn’t ask for a review because it didn’t involve a direct score.

Paul Curtis, who had already booted two goals, would have received the set shot if a free kick had been awarded.

The Dockers cleared the ball from the throw in and Bailey Banfield kicked the sealing goal two minutes later.

Clarkson said those incidents required a conclusive answer.

“It obviously hit the post so why doesn’t that get reviewed?” Clarkson asked.

“That’s up to the umpires and the game to adjudicate that sort of stuff. But where there’s confusion like that with three umpires coming together to say ‘what happened’, if no one is sure then let’s have a look at the screen.”

That incident followed West Coast’s Jake Waterman being allowed to pass to Jack Petruccelle for a goal last week despite gathering the ball with his entire body out of bounds at Adelaide Oval.

St Kilda’s Jack Higgins also appeared to be out of bounds when kicking a goal against Collingwood on Thursday night. That goal gave the Saints a 20-point lead with seven minutes remaining.

But the umpires couldn’t call for a review because incidents involving out of bounds decisions don’t qualify for video reviews.