After a 2017 season plagued by injuries, North’s football department made the conscious decision to focus on player health in a bid to ensure as many players were available for selection as possible come Round 1.

Seven rounds in, the Roos’ list is almost at full-health, and the benefits of having a high-number of players available for selection are being seen in the on the field.

“Taking nothing away from other coaches and other players, but one of the biggest correlators with how a team performs is availability,” Scott told Channel 7’s Talking Footy.

“When you’ve got a full list available I think everyone’s competitive.

“One of our strengths this year is that we’ve been able to keep really good availability, as opposed to last year when we’ve had a huge big injury list and we were playing players before they were ready.”

Sam Wright, Marley Williams, Mason Wood, Kayne Turner, Ben Jacobs and Jed Anderson have all battled injuries in the past 12 months, but all six were solid contributors in Saturday night’s win over Sydney.

Having best-22 players like these available, adds significant depth to the side and gives the match committee greater flexibility at the selection table each week.

“Sam Wright came in and played his first game in two years, Jed Anderson’s back from a lot of injuries, Ben Jacobs hasn’t played in two years and Paul Ahern was our 23rd man on the weekend, and he hasn’t played in two years either,” Scott said.

“There are a lot of guys coming back, which just adds to our depth and means that we can make decisions not only based on how guys are going, but also if we want to send a guy back to the VFL we can do that, we just couldn’t do that last year.”

It’s not just the health of the younger players that is making the difference, Scott Thompson is yet to miss a game this year, while North elected to rest forward Jarrad Waite for its clash with Sydney.

Having the two oldest players on the list with a clean bill of health allows the younger North talls to develop and refine their craft before being tested against AFL opponents.

“The key position guys are critical. When you expose 18, 19, 20-year-old key position players at both ends, they come in playing on superstars,” Scott added.

“You look at some of the key forwards and backs in the competition, for example this weekend we play Richmond, to expose a 19-year-old key forward to Alex Rance and have them face that week-in-week-out is just too tough on them.

“We understand that we are the second-youngest list in the competition, so that availability piece is really important because if we have a lot of injuries, some young guys will be exposed.

“Waite and Thompson and play critical roles in the development of our key talls.”