DANNY Daly is central to North Melbourne's knowledge of its opponents, briefing his fellow coaches and players in the lead-up to each game.

This week North (5-13-1) meets West Coast (6-13) at Subiaco Oval on Saturday.

The boys would have started this week knowing they did a lot of things right.
It was good to have a review on Monday where we actually won a game and have a bit of spirit and excitement around the boys for a change. It was a good result for us and there were some pretty good signs.

Those feelings would have extended throughout the club for most of the week.
Most of the boys have been up and about. North Ballarat had a good win last week too and are going pretty well at the minute. Unfortunately, Werribee had a poor loss but two out of three's good. We haven't been in that position a lot this year. And with Goldy (Todd Goldstein), a young kid, having a good game it was a pretty good week.

It must be the first time in a long time that the side will go in unchanged.
It's been a while. I actually said to the boys in the opposition meeting on Wednesday that there was a bit a déjà vu because the last time we won consecutive games was rounds 19 and 20 last year. It's been a big focus for us this week.

West Coast is suddenly a side that looks pretty good, having fixed up a couple of decent opponents though.
They were pretty good. Obviously the Doggies were coming off Brad Johnson's record-breaking game. I just don't think they were up and about early but, in saying that, full credit to West Coast. They just came out and played some pretty exciting football and got 11 goals up towards half time. At one stage it looked as though the Doggies would overrun them but they fought back, (Andrew) Embley kicked a couple of goals and they really deserved to win. The week before, they accounted for Essendon pretty well so they're in good nick.

You must enjoy travelling to Perth almost as much as Adelaide.
Yeah, we haven't got a good record in Perth. We've won a couple against Freo but we haven't beaten West Coast over here since 2001. Albeit, I think we've only played over here five times. It's going to be a big challenge for the boys. They've flown over here today (Thursday) so we've got a couple of days before we play them to acclimatise to the weather and conditions and the ground, which we train on tomorrow (Friday). It will be interesting to see how the boys handle it.

The Eagles' forward line is where they're clearly most dangerous when you consider (Mark) LeCras, (Josh) Kennedy, (Ben) McKinley and now (Callum) Wilson.
Mark LeCras has had an outstanding season. He's kicked 49 goals and has to be right up there in All-Australian contention. With Josh Kennedy, the deal with Juddy (Chris Judd) has probably taken him a year or two to adjust to Perth again but he's going to be a super player for them. Then they have McKinley and Wilson and (David) Wirrpanda and young (Chris) Masten goes through there. They've got a pretty good forward line, which is something we've reiterated to our defenders this week – the importance of making sure we really make a contest down there so they don't get hold of us. If they do, we'll be in for a long afternoon.

It didn't seem as though Josh Gibson's role last Sunday really clicked, but is he the man to run with Andrew Embley?
We've tried a few things with Gibbo in terms of defence and then the midfield. He's got the endurance to go in the midfield but I think it's a case where we're probably going to have to give him a really big pre-season and make sure he's fully aware of his roles and responsibilities in the midfield. He's done a couple of good jobs on (Adam) Goodes, who plays forward and then goes into the midfield so he could be someone we look at for Embley.

Are you planning any other tags? Matt Priddis? How about if LeCras plays in the midfield again?
We'll have one or two players we'll go after but it will be more about us. If they start throwing blokes here, there and everywhere, we'll make sure we hold our line and win the contested footy, which is going to be paramount this week.

It's the unknown for a lot of the boys because you haven't played them since round eight last year.
We haven't. I brought that up in the opposition meeting the other day. I did a bit of a 'who am I?' quiz with the boys for about 10 of their players. It was interesting to see how many the boys actually knew I was talking about. After that meeting, they're certainly aware of who they're up against.

Nic Naitanui and Quinten Lynch have been carrying their ruck in recent weeks. It's another good opportunity for Todd Goldstein to shoulder yours.
When you play at Subiaco, you need a couple of key forwards as your primary [targets] as the ground's so long. We'll have Lachie (Hansen) and Drew (Petrie) down there but we might have to use Hamish (McIntosh) a bit there this week, too. That will give more of an opportunity to Goldy against Lynch and Naitanui. When you look at Lynch's statistics, he's No. 1 in their first possessions through the midfield and they score from them. He's pretty important when he goes into the ruck. Naitanui has athleticism, ability to get the footy and can do whatever he likes. They've given him licence. It's going to be a good challenge for Goldy and Hamish to make sure they can hold their own against them, especially with the 35 or 40,000 supporters who roar every time Naitanui gets the footy.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the club.