North Melbourne will welcome back grunt midfielder Ben Cunnington against the Western Bulldogs on Good Friday as they seek a quick response to their lacklustre start to the AFL season.
The Kangaroos are coming off the back of back-to-back thumpings and coach David Noble said there’d been an “honest” review of Saturday’s 59-point loss to Gold Coast, emphasising a need for more “combativeness”.
“We need to respond. We need to continue to learn as we go,” Noble told reporters on Wednesday.
“The element that I think we learned from last week is that you have to be on point all the time.
“You’ve got to bring that level of competitiveness.
“We think our ball movement’s in pretty reasonable shape, we’re still working on our defence.
“But at the end of the day, we’ve just got to have that reliability to continue to compete.
“That’s what our fans want to see; they want to come to Friday’s game and see us respond.”
Cunnington has recovered from a pre-season concussion but spent the first two rounds of North’s campaign building his fitness.
“The injury that he’s had has been concussion, (but) the last couple of weeks it’s just been the load issue for us,” Noble said.
“I pushed pretty hard last week to bring him in.
“But based on just the speed of the game, which has ramped up a little bit, we just needed to have that one more week to get him going.”
Kyron Hayden (hamstring) is in the mix to face the Bulldogs, while No.3 draft pick Will Phillips could debut.
However, but Luke McDonald (quad) and Trent Dumont (calf) aren’t ready yet.
Noble rejected any suggestion North’s presence in a Good Friday game should be called into question, saying if that was the case other marquee fixtures should be opened up.
The game is no longer a standalone fixture with Adelaide to host Gold Coast in the later match but Noble said the Kangaroos’ form shouldn’t impede their ability to host a one-out game.
“If you go back to the start of the season it’s Carlton-Richmond. A few years ago the Blues were struggling a bit, it didn’t move,” Noble said.
“So I’m not sure that why that narrative is now just focused on us because we’ve got a young group coming through.
“It’s great exposure for our young guys to have that opportunity to play in those games.”