North Melbourne's list is arguably the most scrutinised and possibly misunderstood in the AFL. If there's one man who can clear up any misperceptions it is the Roos' general manager of football, Cameron Joyce. AFL.com.au spoke at length to Joyce this week at the club's Arden St headquarters to get the lowdown on everything North Melbourne – and what's to come.

Marc McGowan: Everyone has an opinion on North Melbourne and the state of your list – how do you think you're going?

Cameron Joyce: It points back to the end of 2016, when we made some pretty tough decisions and we had to work out and be decisive about where our list was going and how successful we thought we could be – and we decided to strip it back. We went quite hard in terms of stripping it right back and probably lost 10 100-plus-game players over a two-year period in '16, '17. A lot gets talked about '16, but there were quite a few really good players that left in '17 as well – over 2300 games disappeared. We made that conscious effort to say, 'OK, we don't think we'll be able to go again' and so we made the decision to be decisive and cut right back and regenerate the list again. We think we've now been able to expose players – 11 debutants last year and another four this year. Some of those are going to be able to come forward with us, others won't be, but we've actually been able to have a really good look at it all and work out where we're going for the future.

• Premiers 2010-2017

MM: You've got two other big calls to come on Scott Thompson and Jarrad Waite. What will you weigh up with them?

CJ: Both of those players have had terrific seasons. Obviously, Waitey's been injured for the last little piece, but both of them have had a significant impact for us this year. One of the big things around them staying on was not just their form, but also their ability to help and nurture some of our younger, developing talls, which they've done a fantastic job with. So there's always a balance between, you can't continue (progressing to) being super young, but at the same time you've got to keep the balance right. The older teams predominantly over the course of the last 10 years are the better teams in the competition, so there is definitely a factor in age and maturity on your list.

MM: The decisions on Thompson and Waite will impact the immediate future of guys such as Sam Durdin, Ben McKay and Nick Larkey. How much of a factor will they be?

CJ: You do want them to get some exposure, for sure. You want to be able to see that they can play and be the next generation of key-position players at North versus having the experience around of the two boys we've mentioned, so it's definitely a juggling act. In the end, form plays a fair part in that. If the guys' form and their body is good, it usually generates a contract extension more often than not.

MM: How are you handling the Todd Goldstein-Braydon Preuss situation, given Preuss hasn't played a game this year?

CJ: He's desperate to play, Braydon, and his last three weeks, in particular, have been excellent in the VFL. But also Goldy's form, especially against a ruckman (Callum Sinclair) that's been playing some pretty good footy, I thought it was one of Goldy's better games. He's starting to mark the ball really well and he's really giving some first use to our mids as well. It's a dilemma, but it's also a positive that we've got both of them in really good form. How that plays out down the track is going to be interesting – how both of them keep going, in terms of form – but it is somewhat a luxury to have a second ruckman in such good form and that we're prepared to play if anything happened to Todd.

MM: There are other clubs playing two ruckmen. Is that an option and are you fearful that another club might try and lure Preuss from you?

CJ: It's probably been one of the most talked-about things for our footy club for the last 18 months, the whole Goldy-Preuss (scenario). We'd be silly to think clubs aren't at least keeping one eye open on what's happening with both of them. But at the same time, they're both contracted and we're very happy to have both of them on our list, so there's no issue with that at all.

MM: You had 25 players with 26 games or fewer under their belt entering the season. Does this get acknowledged enough in evaluations of your list?

CJ: One of the things this year, which we haven't had the last couple of years, is our player availability. We've had 12 guys who've played every game and three that have played every one bar one, which certainly would be up there in the competition. We've been able to get our best out there on a semi-regular basis, but we've also been able to expose Luke Davies-Uniacke, Paul Ahern, Alex Morgan on the weekend and Tom Murphy's played some footy. But even Jy Simpkin, who played a dozen or so games last year, Jed Anderson's playing, Trent Dumont, Kayne Turner, Majak (Daw) … they are all guys who had less than 50 games going into the year. We had a fair crew of guys that I think hadn't played a hell of a lot of footy because of injury that we thought could play.

MM: How many A-graders have you got?

CJ: (laughing) Interesting question. I'll probably leave that to others to comment on how many we've got. I don't think we had too many at the start of the year, anyone said, but I think these days, with every list in the competition, everyone's got good players. Now whether they're A+, A-, B+, they're good AFL players, so as I mentioned before, some of our better players have gone to another level this year.

MM: Are you bemused that you're linked to every player that's a free agent or on the market, or are you having a crack at all the high-profile options?

CJ: We're certainly not having a crack at everyone, but what I will say on that topic; every club and every list management has got a choice to make – whether they're in the market or not and how aggressive they go. We want to get the best players, but we understand it's bloody hard to move the best players. You only need to look at the trade periods and free agency over the last couple of years to know there hasn't been a hell of a lot of top-liners who have moved clubs. But we'd rather go down swinging having a go than just being a bit-part player.

MM: So all the jibes about North Melbourne missing another big-name player don't bother you?

CJ: We'd prefer to get them, but we're trying to do some pretty difficult stuff, so we're cognisant of that. But we want to try and get really good players in and the good thing about these last six, eight months is that we've probably changed the narrative slightly on our place and just how the players have performed, how our leaders have stood up and how well Brad (Scott) is coaching. We feel confident we can provide a really good environment for anyone who wants to come and play for us.

MM: Are you willing to say which free agents you are targeting?

CJ: Something that we've spoken about is we don't want to give a running commentary on individuals out there. We would like to add to our midfield – we've stated that in the past; that we would like to make that a real strength of ours – but a lot of clubs are trying to do the same things, so there are quite a few swimming in the same pool.

MM: Josh Kelly would look good in blue and white, wouldn't he?

CJ: (laughing)

MM: All jokes aside, it's common knowledge you did have a pretty big crack at him and he's out of contract at the end of next year. Surely you ask the question again?

CJ: If I start talking about one player, I'll start talking about another.

MM: Has 'Gubby' Allan introduced anything early doors that has changed your perspective immediately in how to go about luring the top players?

CJ: I think it's more the cumulative effect of some of this – some of your own information, plus his, plus just a discussion that you can have. We're in an industry that's so competitive. It's not like you can pick up the phone and ring another club and say, 'What are you doing in the list management space?', so there are not that many people out there who have actually done it. It's probably a five-to-seven-year-ago phenomenon that started, so there are not that many kicking around, so his experience and knowledge to tap into is a good resource for us to have.

MM: Are you pretty excited about the early signs with your 2017 draft?

CJ: Again, not to harp on the VFL piece, but Will Walker has been an emergency and been close, Luke Davies-Uniacke has played half a dozen games now, Kyron Hayden had the shoulder (injury) to start with, but has got rolling a bit, so if he can do a full pre-season as well, we think he's going to be able to attack 2019 pretty strongly. He's certainly pretty uncompromising at the contest, in terms of his tackle pressure and how hard he is around the ball. And Tristan (Xerri)'s had some really good games as a 200cm ruck, at 18, 19 years of age. Tristan's kicked multiple goals in quite a few games, he's taken contested marks, he's been in the ruck, he's been forward – he just competes, so we like the way he goes about it.

MM: Taylor Garner looked like he'd turned the corner last year with his body, but it's been a horror year with injury for him, hasn't it?

CJ: It's been really frustrating for Taylor. He came eighth in our best and fairest last year, got some continuity, kicked some multiple goals and showed he can certainly play at the level. He's one amongst a few at the start of this year that had played between that 10 and 40 games that we were really hoping to get more footy into, so that's been a bit disappointing. But we're playing the long game with Taylor in terms of making sure we get him back and get him right, because we still think he can be an important part of our future. The way he's applied himself, in particular off the back of his last injury, has been really good.

MM: You have a lot of draft options this year, with Tarryn Thomas, Bailey Scott, Joel Crocker and maybe even Matt McGuinness out of your Next Generation Academy. How is this situation tracking?

CJ: All are different situations – some are NGA players, some are father-sons, some are father-sons with a lot of choices – so there are a number of different factors and a lot of those guys have played really good footy over the Academy Series and also the (AFL Under-18) Championships. Some of those (Crocker) have been injured a bit, too, which has hampered a little of their development, but we've got, like they do, some decisions to make as the season draws to a close. But it's exciting for us to potentially have some of those players on our list.

MM: You missed out on father-son prospect Nick Blakey. Can you give us an update on Scott, as well as your interest in Crocker?

CJ: Bailey's the one that's got a lot of choices, whereas Joel can only choose us and the NGA boys are with us as well. That in itself gives you an idea of where things are at a little bit, but certainly there will be some competition for some of those boys, not just with choices they have, but also through the bidding system. But we'll keep our powder dry on that.

MM: How excited should the fans be about Tarryn Thomas?

CJ: I think through the Academy Series he had a really good series and then played up in the championships and hurt his hand or his thumb close to the end, but played some reasonable footy there. He's certainly a talented player and again our guys have got to put him in the order as they think, then we'll work through from there.

MM: So there's no guarantee he'll be a Kangaroo next year?

CJ: We've still got decisions to make on all those guys, as some of those have got decisions to make on us.

MM: Your first-round pick is interesting, given you can move up to match any bid on Thomas. Are you considering trading it?

CJ: For starters, we don't even know what number it is, but as we've mentioned before, there's some pretty handy talent at the top end of the draft, so we'll just assess that as we go.

MM: How do you think the list is positioned for short-term and long-term success?

CJ: One thing we never do is put a timeframe on, 'We're going to be good by then' or 'We're ready to go now'. For us, it's definitely being able to develop some of these guys that are under 50 games. That's the big thing for us; to get this crew going and, as you said, we've got a lot that are under 25, so that's been our focus – to really plough the development into those, again with our VFL team. We'll have another really good look at it again at the end of the year, because we've also been able to expose a few more players, so we get some more information. I think the short and medium term, certainly the future looks bright in some of the players we're starting to bring on, but we've got some work to do in the development piece of some of those.