North’s VFL side will start to take shape in the coming weeks with the side’s new Football Manager Andrew Carson hitting the ground running.

Already at Arden Street in the recruiting department, Carson leapt at the chance to help form the club’s first seconds team since 1999.

“As you can imagine there are a lot of things to be done but I guess for right now it’s a list build and staff build,” he told Inside Football.

“They’re probably the two things missing right now … being able to identify the types of players we want to reach out to and potentially to provide an opportunity to play VFL next year, and obviously putting the staff structure around that the enable those players to have the best opportunity to maximise their time here.

“Running parallel to that is building the program itself, when and where training’s going to take place and how often.”

North’s last standalone team was disbanded 18 years ago with the club opting for a partnership with the Ovens and Murray Football League as the Murray Kangaroos from 2000 until 2002. North has since sided with Port Melbourne, North Ballarat, the Tasmania Devils and most recently Werribee.

“One of the key things for us is certainly bringing out player development back under our control,” Carson said about the decision to go standalone once more.

“Full-time coaches, full-time conditioning staff, full-time support and all the people who go with it at AFL level, and then for two hours a week we hand them [the players] over to someone else, and they’re the most important two hours – game time. So to bring that all back in-house and have complete control is really important.”

Current North development coach David Loader will coach the side from 2018 and Carson expects there to be plenty of opportunities for those involved with the Roos.

“That’s something we’re building into our program, providing opportunities whether it’s with us or with someone else.”