With just 81 games to his name, Jamie Macmillan is still very much in the development stages of his career.

But in 2015 he’s made significant progress, both on and off the field.

Macmillan was added to the club’s leadership group at the start of the season, and says the experience has been invaluable.

“Talking up on the field is the easy part because it’s heat of the battle, so it’s pretty easy to say things, yell at blokes and help guys out,” he told NMFC.com.au.

“It’s probably the off-field side of leadership that’s more of a challenge; it’s something that is relatively new to me.

“I’ve been working on it for the last few years, but it’s never easy and I think it’s one of things that you can be in the leadership group for five or six years and you’ve still got to have hard conversations with guys.

“No doubt I’m better now than what I was at the start of the year, but there’s certainly a lot of in-roads to be made there.”

While he’s been able to influence his teammates with his leadership traits, Macmillan has also led the way on the field, taking his game to a new level.

Despite achilles and hamstring injuries curtailing his progress at different stages, the number 34 had his most consistent season to date.

Nevertheless, Macmillan admits there’s still room for improvement.

“The season was pretty up and down for me,” he said.

“It started over in Adelaide (round one), obviously with a pretty big loss, but I had to sit a couple of weeks out with an achilles injury.

“I came back and then had the hamstring injury (round 16), which wasn’t ideal, but in between managed to string together a few OK games and I was reasonably happy with the areas that I had to improve on and the gains I made.”

Macmillan was particularly impressive through the middle part of the year, even polling his first Brownlow votes for a 29 disposal, three-goal haul in Round 12.

“Through the mid-point of the year … I’ve always been able to play my role for the side, but then to have the impact going the other way as well is something that I suppose comes with experience.

“I’ve been able to get a bit of confidence in taking care of the jobs that I’ve got to do, but then also give the side a little bit of something else going the other way.

“I’ve tried to work that into my game this year – some games better than others, but overall I’m pretty happy with it.”

Macmillan pointed out the Roos’ two finals wins as a personal highlight; he had 20 disposals against both Richmond and Sydney.

“They were pretty enjoyable to play in. That’s what we play footy for, to get out there and especially in front of 90,000 at the MCG (against Richmond) … it was a pretty good day.

“Just having the confidence to be able to execute what you’ve done throughout the year, to execute it really well in the finals just gives you confidence that on the biggest stage you can still perform your role.”

And while North eventually fell at the final hurdle, in a preliminary final, the building blocks to success are certainly in place.

“Over at West Coast it was a pretty hostile environment and we didn’t get the result we wanted to, but we even showed in the first quarter that we were up to it,” Macmillan added.

“When we play our way it certainly stacks up in September, so the whole group will take heaps of confidence out of our finals series this year.

“There’s still plenty more to work on and unfortunately it was a pretty disappointing end to the year, but I’ll look forward to next year.”