The following article, written by North Melbourne coach Brad Scott, appeared in The Hobart Mercury on Saturday.

In football, speaking about the future is dangerous. Look too far down the track and you can be accused of getting ahead of yourself or taking your eyes off the coming game – that’s why we have the famous AFL ­cliche, “we’re taking it one week at a time”.

At season’s end, you have to ignore the elephant in the room, finals, to keep everyone focused.

After our 35-point win over Melbourne on Sunday, we made it five wins in a row and leapfrogged three teams in Adelaide, Geelong and Richmond to claim sixth spot.

Despite our rapid climb up the ladder, the message was clear after the match: if we’re good enough, we will play ­finals, but there’s a hell of a lot of water to go under the bridge.

As I predicted at the start of the year, this is one of the most competitive seasons in AFL history. It’s been a tipster’s nightmare and on any given week the unthinkable can happen. Every single team, regardless of their spot on the ladder, is capable of an upset victory.

That’s why we cannot ­afford to get ahead of ourselves. As quickly as we climbed into sixth position we could tumble out of the eight.

It’s all about “opportunity”, I explained to the boys. Our destiny rests in our hands and, although the next month of football presents one heck of a challenge, it’s an amazing chance to test ourselves against the best sides.

First up we have St Kilda, a young and talented side that defeated and has taken it right up to some of the best teams.

The Saints are capable of great footy and we will have to be at our best to beat them. Led by veterans Nick Riewoldt and Leigh Montagna, they are an enthusiastic bunch with the likes of Jack Steven, David Arm­itage and Josh Bruce as dangerous as ever.

The tasks don’t get any easier with first-placed Fremantle, the fifth-placed Bulldogs and seventh-placed Richmond rounding out our season.

Like many other teams in the top eight, we can’t afford to make any mistakes or slip up at any stage.

So our massive month all starts today and thankfully, we will have our hometown Tassie fans behind us all the way.

A win against St Kilda will make it three from three this year in Hobart and it is thanks largely to the support our followers down here provide.

Against a howling wind in Round 10 playing the Eagles, the noise our fans generated helped us home with a wet sail to achieve an unlikely victory. In Round 6, we managed to knock off the Tigers in front of a capacity crowd and the ­atmosphere was electric.

When we look at the schedule, the Blundstone Arena venue stands out as a blessing. It has fast become our fortress and the players and coaches love everything about playing here three times a year, from the immaculate surface, right down to seeing a sea of royal blue and white in the stands.

I’m told our Tasmanian membership base has increased substantially yet again this year.

When we started playing games here in 2012, we had 3665 people hop on board. That number has now swelled to 5244 in 2015, which is a fantastic result and a credit to everyone involved.

On behalf of everyone at North Melbourne, thanks for your generous hospitality throughout the year and if all goes well, I hope you’ll be singing the song with us again when the final siren sounds this afternoon.