When a side loses a four-time Coleman Medallist, seven-time All-Australian and dual premiership forward from its forward-line, it’s relatively unknown how its front six will perform.

That is the case for Sydney this weekend, which will be without star Lance Franklin for its clash with North on Saturday night.

“Sydney’s forward-line is obviously a fair bit different without ‘Buddy’,” North defensive coach Josh Drummond told North Media. 

“He’s one of the best players in the game and as good a forward as there is.

“Him missing does make a difference, but it probably makes Sydney a bit more of an open book in terms on its options going forward.

“As we do, when you’ve got a really strong forward, you go through them a fair bit and they draw the footy because that’s what good players do.

“It certainly creates a bit more of that element of surprise and the Swans will have multiple options going forward I’m sure.”

Sydney was without Franklin in its win over Geelong last weekend, with its small forwards combining to fill the void left by the 31-year-old.

Drummond expects the likes of Gary Rohan, Luke Parker and Isaac Heeney to step-up to the plate once again.

“Rohan’s got speed, he can run and jump at the ball and he’s a really strong mark overhead,” he said.

“The guys Sydney will have up there like Parker and Heeney aren’t necessarily tall, but they play tall and are really, really strong overhead.

“They’ve got confidence to kick it to them and they’ll play like tall forwards, but obviously they are really good at ground level, so it will certainly keep us on our toes.”

North’s key-defenders in Robbie Tarrant and Scott Thompson have been standouts in the early part of 2018, and despite the absence of Sydney’s tall forwards, Drummond strongly believes they will have key roles to play.

“Nothing really changes week-to-week with those guys,” he said.

“Scooter’s a 200-game player, and he’s played on guys like Eddie Betts and Lance Franklin in the past.

“He’s played on different types, and he’s done a good job on talls, smalls, inbetweeners, markers, fall-of-the-ball players and he’s in really good form.

“We’ll have a chat about how we setup our defence and Scooter will, as he has in the past few weeks, play on a few different guys.”

The SCG is a ground like no other, given the smaller dimensions of the ground.

Etihad Stadium has a length of 159.5 meters, compared to the SCG which is just 149 meters, making the ability to transition the ball from one side of the ground to other much easier at Sydney’s home ground.

“It does make a difference,” Drummond added.

“The ball can get from one end of the ground to the other pretty quickly given it’s a lot shorter, but the fundamentals of the game stay the same.

“We don’t necessarily change too much going from Etihad to the SCG because of the dimensions.”