The return of Andrew Swallow will help North's midfield emerge as one of the better clearance sides in the competition, former Roo and Cat Cameron Mooney says.

While Ben Cunnington is ranked sixth in the league in the statistical category, the Kangaroos as a team are ranked 14th. It's a damning statistic when you consider they finished seventh in the same area last year.

Enter Swallow. The captain was ranked fifth amongst all players for clearances in 2013, and his leadership in the middle is vital.

"I reckon North has started to become a bit more ruthless around the stoppages," Mooney told the Geelong Advertiser.

"With Andrew Swallow back, the Kangas look much better around the contest.

"They have been such a good clearance side over recent years but they’ve fallen off the pace in that area a bit this year, so having Swallow’s presence again will have a huge influence."

North's number 9 got through his AFL outing for the year unscathed and will be raring to go on Friday night. That's where the significance of a key opposition absentee becomes ever-present.

"Geelong will obviously be without Steve Johnson this week and that’s going to hurt.

"He’ll cop his whack from the playing group about it and they’ll be just as disappointed as Steve would be."

One of the Brownlow Medal favourites, Johnson has been in fine form through the middle, averaging almost five clearances a game.

In attack, the Roos' Drew Petrie, Majak Daw and Aaron Black have all had their moments without firing on all cylinders.

Against one of the more seasoned defensive groups in the competition, they'll have their work cut out.

"Tom Lonergan, Harry Taylor and Jared Rivers are going to need to have big games to counter them, but, as we’ve seen for many years, the Cats can usually keep tall forward lines under wraps," Mooney added.

"A lot of Geelong defenders attack from the back half — and that’s been the hallmark of the recent success — but sometimes they get opened up when they push too high up the ground and we saw that against the Dockers.

"They need to make sure against North they’ve still got someone back playing the anchor role and making sure they don’t get beaten on the counter-attack."

Perhaps the most important duel will be at the other end of the ground though.

"The big match up on Friday night will be the Tom Hawkins-Scott Thompson battle. That’s going to be a belter.

"Geelong’s only averaging about 12 goals a game this season so the Cats need to be generating more scores. That will be a bit more difficult without Johnson as well as the fact the Kangas are putting a greater emphasis on defence now."