Ben Brown has tipped North to take its aggressive pre-season approach into the home and away season.
Several Roos were involved in scuffles during training earlier in the year, and have attacked the contest ferociously in their first two competitive matches against Sydney and Hawthorn.
“It would be remiss of us to just show that aggression in training and not take it into the season,” Brown told The Mercury.
“We saw Braydon Preuss come out in that game on the weekend and lay a couple of blokes out, which is great. We love that aggressive side to our game and we want to keep that going.”
Brown isn’t sure when he’ll rejoin his AFL teammates and admits he may need to play with VFL affiliate Werribee first on his return from a knee injury.
“I’ll play a practice match and be right for Round 1. It’s pretty definite — if I don’t have any setbacks,” Brown said.
“Everything is going pretty well so it will either be JLT3 or a Werribee practice match.”
The North cult-hero has enjoyed the chance to watch the young guns shine from hit spot on the sidelines over the past fortnight.
“We’ve lost some personnel, but the guys who come in will be able to fill that role really well,” Brown said.
“We’ve seen in the first couple of pre-season games that we are an exciting side and we’re a team that is going to be young and full of run.
“We are feeling like the senior group of players is relatively the same, particularly out of the midfield with Jack Ziebell, Andrew Swallow and Ben Cunnington and Todd Goldstein.
“That’s pretty much been our midfield for years so I think we can continue to develop on that.”