Shaun Atley says each and every player on the North Melbourne list must find another level if the club is going to make it back into the finals and ultimately compete for its fifth flag in the coming years.

Speaking at the end of training, less than 24 hours after arriving back in Melbourne from Utah, the 23-year-old believes success will only come if everyone pulls their weight.

“Everyone’s got improvement in them, I think for us to go the next step, we’ve made two prelims two years in a row, but we really want to go that step further and win the Grand Final so everyone’s going to have to improve to get to that stage,” he said.

The speedy defender knows the Roos have the right personnel to challenge for a spot in the finals and push deep into the premiership race, but refused to be drawn on talk about the club's window closing due to the age of its list.

“You have that feeling every year … it’s hard to look into the future to say what’s going to happen in the next couple of years but I think the boys are really positive on this pre-season so far and (we’re) hoping to set ourselves for a big 2016,” he said.

Atley attended the club's high-altitude camp in Utah for the fifth straight year and experienced a much different training environment, with Melbourne’s temperatures soaring past 30 degrees.

“It’s too cold over there. It was minus 15 on the first day we got there so it was a bit of a shock to the body. It’s a bit different. We had two weeks over there in Utah, just the young boys and a couple of older boys as well and got some really good work in over there but it’s good to be back here with the main group now.”

The 109-gamer revealed a family commitment meant he had to return a day earlier than the rest of the group, but it wasn’t your run-of-the-mill occasion.

“I got tickets to AC/DC. My whole family loved it so I had to come back a day early.”