The Fury had the better of the opportunities during the contest but were wasteful in front of goal, meaning Nick Kalmar's first-half strike was enough for the Heart to condemn the Townsville club to consecutive defeats.

McLaren was clearly disappointed by the result after the game, while he also felt the Fury produced the better football too.

"Robbed," he said. "All three. On the balance of chances.

"If you draw direct comparisons between the type of football that was played between both sides I don't think it was any contest.

"I think we can be very proud of the way our lads played, particularly in responding from the first dent last week getting beat by Adelaide."

"All that was missing was finishing off a couple of chances that we had, particularly a couple of the gilt-edged chances in the first half.

"It's a lesson for us. I know our lads again will respond very well. We can take stock in the bye next week and look forward to a few challenges."

McLaren added: "One thing you can see from this squad, is if they're thrown a challenge they'll respond to it."

Consecutive defeats has put a halt to the Fury's fast-start to the season after collecting five points in their first three contests, but McLaren believed it was a good platform to build on.

"We've picked up five points, we know it could've been more, but five is probably five more than people would've given us a chance of getting," he said.

Continuing on about the Fury's re-invented brand of football, McLaren praised his squad for gelling so well after a difficult off-season in Townsville.

"The players we brought to the club are very attack-minded players, very good team oriented players, they're young, they're full of enthusiasm and I'm very pleased in a relatively short space of time the large number of changes we've made to this squad have gelled very well."

North Queensland have the bye next week, before travelling to face Melbourne Victory in Round 7.