Rotated between attack and defence in the early part of the season, Wright struggled to settle and found himself in the VFL.
But after returning to the side in Round 16, the 24-year-old has enjoyed an outstanding run of form.
"A lot of the game is between the ears and Sam has really benefitted in the second half of this year just being locked in to play in defence," North assistant coach Josh Drummond told AFL.com.au.
"He trained down back in the pre-season and then was played forward early in the year, so he's probably been a bit back and forth."
Wright was one of North’s most influential players in the Elimination Final win against Essendon, coming as no surprise to Drummond.
"I know people said it was one of his best games on the weekend, but it was probably more the occasion on which he played it.
"Sam has been really good down back for the last eight weeks. He's just been building all year and last weekend was reward for the effort that he's put in."
Wright’s scalps in the past two months include the Hawks’ Luke Breust and Adelaide’s James Podsiadly, but it's the drive he's added going the other way that's caught the eye.
Since returning to the side, he’s averaged 20.6 possessions a game, 4.1 rebound 50s and 2.7 inside 50s.
"I guess earlier in the season I didn't really know what made me a good player," Wright admitted.
"I was still inconsistent and lacked confidence, but I feel like I've really found that now and hopefully this has set me up for the next three years or so to play some good, consistent AFL footy."
Wright says the Kangaroos have learnt a lot from their previous two losses this season against Geelong, and will implement some different strategies on Friday night.
"I think at times in those games we just played within ourselves, went back into our shells and didn't really take the game on.
"We finished off our second halves in those games all right, but we'll be looking at them really closely this week.
"Last week's win was massive for our confidence and we enjoyed it, but we've moved on to this week now and are going into the game full of confidence."
