Jack Ziebell chatted to Brett Stubbs from The Mercury ahead of Saturday night's clash against Sydney. 

At 2-6 and sitting 17th on the ladder, is North Melbourne now in a rebuild phase?

As players, and as the leader of this football club, I don’t care what phase we’re in. It’s my job to lead the team out, and to try and win every game we play. I know it's cliche; but we don't look too far ahead as players, otherwise we lose focus on the now and what's right in front of us. Our club has been built on a never beaten attitude and I personally take umbrage to any suggestion that, "our season is over", or anything like that.

After a slow start to the season, how does the team view success for 2019?

It obviously hasn’t been the start we wanted but we’re hell-bent on winning every game we play. Success for us is winning every week and playing our brand. At the start of the season, we weren't playing a North Melbourne style of footy and we've worked hard to get back to that. Tonight is another opportunity for us to put that into practice and get another win on the board.

You appear to have a switch back to a more evenly split role between midfield and forward in recent weeks. Is that through necessity or design?

It was through design. The club went out and bolstered the midfield in the off-season, which has allowed me to play more as a forward, which I’ve really enjoyed. I think the strongest teams in the league have players that can play multiple roles, and I’m just happy to be able to play wherever Brad needs me, whether that be forward or mid.

Will you go head to head with Josh Kennedy or Luke Parker tonight?

There’s every chance of that happening. The past two weeks I’ve played on Patrick Cripps and last week I spent some time on Tim Kelly and Patrick Dangerfield. I think Kennedy and Parker are two of the competition’s best midfielders, so if I end up on them tonight, I’ll certainly have to be on my game.

Why does North Melbourne have such an imposing win-loss record at Blundstone Arena?

It’s no secret that the ground has some quirks; it can be extremely windy there and if you don’t know how to play the venue, you can have a pretty ordinary day. For us, we love coming down to Tasmania and we feel like the ground is our own. I think that gives us an edge. There aren’t too many genuine ‘home ground’ advantages in the AFL these days so when you get one like we have here, you want to embrace it and really take advantage of it. The crowds we’ve had have been North-centric too which helps with your confidence and general team morale.

What are you impressions of Tarryn Thomas's first six games as an AFL player?

He’s been an absolute standout for me. He’s so laid back and relaxed out there and you can see that he has a huge future in the AFL – he will be a genuine superstar in the years to come. The thing that probably surprised me the most, is his attack on the footy and the man; he’s a tackling machine and loves to roll his sleeves up and put his head over the ball. I think people from the outside see a relatively quiet, shy Tarryn, but inside the club, he’s a real character and someone that has fitted in seamlessly. We love the way he goes about his footy and love running out next to him.

What does Aaron Hall have to do to become a permanent figure in your AFL side?

Aaron has elite qualities and attributes and like some other players this year, he’s gone back to the VFL to work on a few things and find more of the ball, which he’s done. We’re talking about a guy who has genuine line-breaking ability, speed and footy-smarts so it won’t be long before he’s back in the team, I’m sure. He's been named as an emergency this week, which also shows how close he is to returning.

Have the new rule changes for this year been a positive or a negative on the game?

I think, as Brad said, they probably hurt us early on, but in recent weeks we’ve been able to find the right balance and formula in the midfield to get control over the main areas of concern that we had. We were being scored against from centre bounces too easily and have done a lot of work on that. We were able to dominate that area against Carlton and we should have won last week against Geelong, if not for some wayward kicking at goal.