Shaun Higgins says North will have an extra source of motivation this weekend, as the club pays tribute to the career of Michael Firrito.
Firrito will be at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night as the Roos take on an in-form Richmond side and Higgins encouraged all fans to get along to say thanks to the man known as ‘Spud’.
“It will be a really good tribute to ‘Spud’ this weekend,” Higgins told SEN’s The Run Home.
“Firstly, (when I was) playing against him, talk about niggly and shutting players out of the game, Spud did it as good as anyone. He was probably one of my least favourite players to play against.
“But after joining North Melbourne, he’s the first guy you want to be playing with.
“He’s the type of guy that is the heart and the soul of the footy club, he was for such a long period of time. (He is) one of the most respected guys externally, but internally he’s loved by everyone.”
Despite recent good form against the Tigers, Higgins said the Roos would need to be at their best to get the four points on Saturday night.
“We’ve had a couple of good wins, we had that final a couple of years ago and the win down in Tassie last year.
“They are a side that’s really in form and played some really good football of late and probably similar to us - we just dropped a couple of close games and could be further up the ladder.
“Saturday night footy under the roof, it should be a really exciting game and we’re looking forward to it.”
After winning four of their last five, Higgins said the players are in a good frame of mind.
“We’re travelling ok, but like you said, we are four and six and where by no means where we need to be, but we’re building at that’s the pleasing thing.
“We didn’t buy in to the talk externally over the summer that we’d drop (down the ladder). We felt our games were pretty good, although we were zero and five, we were playing the way we had planned to play.”
The deputy vice-captain said Sunday’s win over Carlton again showed the side’s strong character, finding a way to win when the opposition got a run on.
“It was an interesting game, it felt like we were in control the first half, but they got their game going in the third quarter,” he said.
“The pleasing thing for us was we were able to bounce back, fight back and find a way to win late in the game.”
