Drew Petrie says umpires need to gauge the ‘intent of a defender’ in marking contests when deciding whether a free kick is warranted for forwards.

North’s interim captain is often the subject of close-checking from his opponents and while he’s happy it’s part of the game, he admits it can be frustrating.

“There’s always going to be incidental holding, but I think the umpires need to look at the intent of the defender, and a lot of the defenders in the competition have no intent to touch the ball or even get near the ball,” Petrie said on the AFL Exchange podcast.

“All they want to do is lock you up as fairly as they can so the umpire won’t pay a free kick.”

PRESS PLAY above to listen to Petrie's thoughts | NMFC Audio

Travis Cloke has been criticized for his early season form, but Petrie believes the adjudication of contact in contests is hindering the Magpies’ forward.  

“… he’s got a guy dropping in front of him and his direct opponent, all he wants to do is prevent him from jumping and getting a free run at the footy.

“When you are versing two opponents it’s often hard to take a mark.”

But Petrie is making no excuses for his own start to the year, admitting he’d like to have more impact on the scoreboard.

“I’m not trying to wash over the fact I’ve had a bit of a slow start to the year,” he added.

“I can honestly say that I am fit. I did all the pre-season; I can’t go blaming any part of my body for not allowing me to play as good as football as I have in years gone by.”

The number 20 is keen to focus on how he can help the team if things aren’t going his way.

“Statistically if you look at in the first round I only had three possessions and against Port I had four possessions, but when the footy was in the area I thought I contested OK.

“I didn’t take as many marks as I would have liked and didn’t get involved in the stats sheet or the scoreboard as I would have done in years gone by, but I don’t think I was outmarked, I brought the footy to the front and hopefully created some contests and some crumbs for the players in front.”

Vital to the outcome of Sunday’s match will be Petrie’s match-up with Ted Richards; the latter having taken the points in their most recent battles.

Sydney’s resurgence against the Crows has put the competition on notice after many wrote it off after two rounds.

“If you look at last week’s game on its own, Sydney had the same amount of possessions as Adelaide, yet they won by 11 goals.

“I’d suggest either Adelaide over-possessed it, or Sydney was really efficient and moved the footy really well going forward and inside 50.”

The Swans’ running defenders are finding their feet. The likes of Jarrad McVeigh and Nick Malceski ran rampant in Round 3, and a similar output could have North on the ropes.

“… they are going to look to move the football really quickly off half-back, which they’ve done a lot over the years.

“Whenever the footy turns over in our forward line we’ve got to make sure we do slow them down and we lock it in our half, because as soon as they repel and rebound off half-back they are a really dangerous side.”

Winning pretty is something the Kangaroos are used to but their free-flowing brand and attacking play has changed in recent weeks.

“The last two wins, especially the one against the Bulldogs, no-one gave us much credit because they thought it was scrappy and an ugly game of footy and the weekend probably wasn’t much different to that.

“It’s good to win like that every now and then, and coming up against Sydney who are a very contested-orientated side, it will be a similar type of game.”