It would come as no surprise to North Melbourne fans that one of their club’s players has been identified as the league’s most underrated man. There would be little shock value in revealing that man is defender Scott Thompson.

Matt Murnane reports in today’s Age newspaper Thompson is number one in the AFL for intercept possessions and number two for intercept marks. He ranks first for spoils and rebound-50s and second for contested marks and contested possessions at Aegis Park.

''He is just one of those really level guys,'' Kangaroos’ backline coach Shane Watson told Murnane.

''He's not real flashy, he tries to do the basic things well and doesn't play outside what he thinks he can do.”

Thompson’s 24 intercept possessions against Greater Western Sydney was the most by any player since the statistic has been recorded and the 26-year old has averaged a career-high 18.4 disposals a game in 2012.

''He does a lot of homework on his opposition players. He had been doing that, but he has done a lot more of it this year,'' said Watson.

''He is the one guy who will consistently come up a few days out and want to get an idea of who he is likely to play on and run through their vision just so it is clear in his mind.

''He will go into the game with a certain plan and then a back-up plan on a certain key forward. And then you will notice, watching the game live or afterwards with the behind-the-goals vision, you'll see him setting up in certain positions and doing little things that he remembered during the week.''

Thompson will need to study hard this week with Eagles’ talls Josh Kennedy, Jack Darling, Quinten Lynch, Dean Cox and Nic Naitanui likely to be his opposition.

''You find that with the guys who have to work pretty hard to get on a list or have come into the system in a different way. They have just got that edge to them, where they think, 'I've had to fight really hard to get here, I'm going to make sure I stay here','' Watson added.

''He's sort of been known as a scraggy defender in the past.

''He wasn't too concerned about getting the footy himself. But we have always known he had a lot more to his game than that.

''He certainly takes a few marks from backing himself one-on-one with his opponent and he takes a few by making that judgment call to come off his opponent and help out his other defenders.''