While North has been ravaged by injury, Hawthorn has regained its most experienced player with Sam Mitchell returning to play on Friday night.

The midfielder sat out the Hawks’ thumping of Essendon last week, but has been declared fit today by coach Alastair Clarkson. However he remained coy about Luke Hodge’s chances.

“Sam will come back into the side this week,” Clarkson said.

“(Hodge) is getting close to playing. I had a conversation with him earlier in the week about whether he wanted to play this week, so he’s getting pretty close.

“We wanted him to do a good block of training to get himself cherry ripe to play some really good footy in the second half of the year for us.”

Question marks remain over ruckman Jonathon Ceglar and Taylor Duryea.

“We want to pick a strong side to play North Melbourne,” he added.

“The Kangaroos are on top of the ladder for a reason, they’ve been really good throughout the course of the year and we’ve got to try and determine out of what goes on today at the Kangaroos with the selection of their side how we might structure up.”