Instead, they were joined by injured captain Andrew Swallow who took the time to impart his football wisdom and make North's newest additions feel welcome.
"I had no idea that he (Swallow) was going to be here so that was a nice surprise," Kayne Turner told NMFC.com.au on Friday.
"He's a great help and he's a really good leader. He's been with us all week, helping with our skills and always giving us advice on how we can get better which has been great.
"He's shown us around the club and we've done some training with him which has been exciting."
For mature-age recruit Tippett, the opportunity to work with an experienced leader is invaluable.
"He's obviously training pretty hard to get back from his injury, so it's good to see how he goes about things as well," he said.
Development coach Jarred Moore has taken Tippett and Turner through their paces during their initiation period. It's been no easy ride.
"Bulldog (Moore) has put us through some good sessions this week. We've trained really hard but there's been some fun sessions as well which has been a good balance.
"It's been a bit different with the rest of the boys still away so it will be good to get them back next week."
With a long and arduous pre-season ahead of them, both rookies admit there's plenty of opportunity for improvement.
"I'm hoping to get into the top running group; that would be really nice," Turner added.
"I liked doing a lot of long-distance running at school and it's something that I really enjoy doing. And I just want to improve in every possible way."
With AFL experience under his belt, Tippett could be seen as having an advantage, but he understands the challenges ahead.
"With uni and that I've been a little bit behind on where I want to be with my fitness, so I'm going to put my head down now and train really hard to get back on track," he said.
"Obviously I'll just see how I go in the pre-season training and see what the coaches are thinking but it would be a great goal if I could achieve a call-up for the NAB challenge."
