Sam Gibson says the ability to "find a way to win" in pressure situations will help North become a better side in 2016.

The Roos moved to the top of the table after defeating Fremantle by 31 points on Sunday, and while there's still plenty to work on, the signs are promising.

“To actually get a few wins on the board early and consolidate on some good form has been good,” Gibson said.

“Our ambition is to be a great side, and great sides just find a way to win.

“There’s probably no better example of that, than Hawthorn’s last fortnight. Regardless if things are going your way during the game, you just find a way to win and so far this season we’ve been doing that.”

Gibson said the club had adapted well to recent rule changes, including a cap on interchange rotations.

“We are a fit, resilient side, so that probably plays into our hands a little bit.”

While the Roos have scored a combined 41 goals in their past two outings, they are still looking to step up their defensive pressure.

“We’re scoring really well. It’s probably just trying to limit the opposition scoring,” Gibson said. 

"That’s not something we want to be giving up very often. We’ll get our defensive structures right and try and limit other teams’ ability to score, because we know we’ll score well ourselves.”

And asked if tweaks to the club’s pre-season approach had made the difference to North's strong start, Gibson said it was difficult to tell.

“We probably took a view of pre-season (that) we were treating training a bit more like games and were preparing as such, just so that we got our preparation spot on,” he added. 

“Whether it’s had an effect or not, look we’ll probably never know, but this early in the season with how we’re going, it probably has had some effect.”