“They play a different brand of footy….a bit more one-on-one than some of the other clubs and I think we’re at a stage now that means you can’t drop your guard against absolutely anyone,” Harvey told kangaroos.com.au on Friday.
Despite a dominant record against the Dees in recent times, North Melbourne be relying on past results to get them over the line.
“It’s good to have the wood over a team but this year has been so competitive and even that I don’t think you can go back and say ‘they haven’t beaten us since 2006 or whatever it is’, because anything can happen no matter who you play. So I don’t read too much into that and I’m sure the boys won’t either.
“Melbourne is one of those teams, I know they’re low on the ladder, but they’ve still got some fantastic players. The new coach and the direction they’re taking is going to be good but at the minute, we just have to concentrate on what we’re about and if we do that, it doesn’t matter who we play.”
The Roos trained indoors on Friday with the a rain drenched Aegis Park surface not ideal and former Melbourne Tigers’ basketball coach Trevor Gleeson stepped in to take some of the drills.
Harvey says Gleeson’s approach and new training methods have given the boys a bit of a spark.
“I think his ideas are really, really good. All the coordination drills and the hand-eye skills the basketballers use are so relevant to football as well. All the touch stuff we do, is excellent for our ball handling and hand-eye coordination.”
Gleeson was based at Aegis Park when he led the Tigers in the NBL earlier this year and formed some solid relationships with the North Melbourne players and coaches.
“He watches my game clips with Darren Crocker to try and learn as much as he can about footy,” Harvey explained.
“Because it’s different and we haven’t done anything like this before, it does add some more energy to the session. He (Trevor) introduces some different games which is refreshing and I think his ideas have been excellent.
“It’s all making sure you can control the footy and he wants to get us to a point where we don’t even have to look at the ball, we can just feel the ball and know exactly where it’s going. It’s getting that touch and being able to visualize where the ball is going.
“Some of it’s competitive so I try and match up against Drew Petrie because he’s crap at it and he always ends up doing the pushups and sit ups as punishment for losing. Whenever there’s competition involved, I think you go a lot harder and faster so I think his philosophy is to be the boys under a bit more pressure.”
Check out the best photo’s from Trevor Gleeson’s training session below.
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