DANNY Daly is central to North Melbourne's knowledge of its opponents, briefing his fellow coaches and players in the lead-up to each game.

This week North (4-12-1) meets Carlton (9-8) at Docklands on Friday night.

Last week it seemed the season might have caught up to the players a little bit.
I reckon [that was the case] with everything that's been going on the last four or five weeks. The boys came out and had a crack early but then when Brisbane were able to get their game going as they liked, we just couldn't stop them. Once Jonathan Brown got on top of us and (Simon) Black and (Luke) Power got their run through the midfield, it was pretty hard to stop. I think there were some tired guys out there and we just turned the footy over too much and allowed them to score from those turnovers.

Liam Anthony continues to grow in stature, doesn't he.
He's obviously had a pretty good month of footy but I think one of the big things for Liam to work on over the next few weeks is being able to work defensively and get back to support our defence. Given he's only played five games, that's more education for us to give him. Obviously someone will work with him over the pre-season but for a young kid who's come into the competition, he's had a pretty good five weeks.

Adam Simpson was your best last week. He obviously had a more familiar role than the one he was given against Richmond.
I think Simmo came to the conclusion last week that he only had a couple of weeks left so he asked Crock (Darren Crocker) if he could spend his last couple of games actually in the midfield. With Simmo being a true champion of the footy club, it's only fitting that we play him on the ball where he's played most of his footy.

And there would be a lot of emotion around the club this week.
Yeah, there has been. It's been an emotional week for me because I've spent a fair bit of time with Simmo in my seven years at the club and have done a lot of work with him in his coaching aspirations. I'm basically his mentor at the club and have spent a lot of time with him outside of footy. As I said to the boys on Wednesday when I did my opposition meeting, words can't describe Simmo, what he means to the footy club and what he means to the players. You don't have to say too much. I think the players should just be able to go out there and do what they need to do for him.

Carlton has been a hard one to read this year: four goals last week for a side that usually averages about 15. You would have taken a fair bit of interest in Collingwood's approach there.
I've actually seen quite a bit of them in the last eight or nine weeks. It's an interesting one because we haven't played them and it's round 18, so the boys don't know a great deal about them apart from what they read on (Brendan) Fevola. I had a keen eye on the Carlton-Collingwood game and the way Collingwood went about it in pressing right on him (Fevola) and not giving them any space to get the ball out of their defence. They also protected Fevola's space and did it really well using (Nick) Maxwell and (Harry) O'Brien, which cut off their supply. I think Fevola's averaged about seven goals against us the last four games so it's going to be a key area for us.

He's really thrown Gibbo around in the past, but you've persisted with that match-up. Will that happen again despite the inclusions?
No, I wouldn't have thought Gibbo would get the role on him this week. We'll play Gibbo more across half-back and someone like Scotty Thompson or Narni (Nathan Grima), who have been pretty good in the last few weeks in cutting down opposition key forwards, will get the job.

Levi Greenwood has impressed in a tagging role in the last two weeks. Will he be handed a bigger job this time?
Yeah, he'll get a pretty big gig. He's had a good fortnight, especially when he went on to (Daniel) Jackson against Richmond and helped us get back into the game in the second half. I thought last week on (Daniel) Rich, given how much footy Brisbane were able to get through their midfield ... he stuck to his task pretty well. Whether it's (Bryce) Gibbs or (Chris) Judd, we'll decide that in the morning (Friday). Either one of those two blokes will be an enormous challenge for him but another learning experience.

You have a small forward line now without David Hale in the side. That means a lot falls on Corey Jones and Lachie Hansen, especially with Michael Jamison named by Carlton.
Yeah, but Jamison has missed a couple of games with his groin. You'll probably find Hamish McIntosh will spend a bit more time forward or even Drew could, because of the inclusion of Narni. The key to the game will be through the midfield.

If we can win enough footy and get it in there quick and put their defenders under a pressure [that will go a long way]. We just need a forward who can take a good grab down there and finish off the work that some of our midfielders have been able to do. We had the ball inside 50 53 times last week, which is a high proportion for us, but we just weren't able to capitalise. We need to make sure we take the mark when it goes in there or get our little fellas scraping around the packs and kicking the goals.

How have you handled the short week? It was a very light session on Thursday.
It was very light on Tuesday, too. We flew back from Brisbane on Sunday, got the review out of the way on Monday morning and were straight into our opposition stuff. It's a week that has gone pretty quickly but it's probably a good one for that. We didn't have too much emotion for Simmo compared to if it was a seven or eight-day break. Being a short break, the boys have pulled up OK. It's been all about recovery. For the first 20 minutes of the game, it's going to be on between the two clubs so we've just tried to freshen them up as much as we can.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the club.