NORTH Melbourne coach Brad Scott says the bye came at the perfect time for the club, allowing it to regroup in time for its game against Fremantle this Sunday at Patersons Stadium.

North was thrashed by reigning premier Collingwood by 87 points in round two and having the bye in round three had allowed it to work on deficiencies exposed by Magpies, Scott said at Aegis Park on Thursday.

"When we looked at the fixture when it first came out, we probably thought the bye in round three was less than ideal," Scott said.

"You effectively have a bye before the season starts and (then) play two games and (have) another bye.



"But after that round two performance, we clearly had a lot of things to work on. The last two weeks have given us an opportunity to train pretty hard and work on rectifying some of those deficiencies."

Despite the disappointing nature of the Collingwood loss, Scott indicated he would keep faith with the 22 players involved in that game, with another three players to join them when the 25-man squad for Sunday's game was announced late on Thursday afternoon.

One of those players would be Cameron Pedersen, Scott said.

If selected in the final 22, the utility could be called on to support Todd Goldstein and Drew Petrie in the ruck as they take on Fremantle star Aaron Sandilands.

Kangaroos captain Brent Harvey would be under no extra pressure to perform against Freo following his criticism of young players Lachie Hansen and Sam Wright after the Collingwood game, Scott said.

He said Harvey was one of the most respected players at the club and emphasised there was no lingering ill will between him, Hansen and Wright, while adding the two youngsters had trained well over the bye.

Scott said Fremantle was one of the form teams in the competition this year and presented another big challenge for the Kangaroos.

But he was bemused by Fremantle coach Mark Harvey's claims earlier on Thursday that a North media ban on its players this week was a sign of how fired up the Kangaroos were for Sunday's clash.

Scott denied his players had been banned from speaking to the media, saying several had appeared on Fox Sports and on Perth radio station 6PR.

Told Harvey had noticed strong similarities between North's young side and the Geelong side coached by his twin brother Chris, Scott joked he would like the Cats' 2011 win-loss record, but otherwise said he "didn't know where (Harvey was) coming from".

Scott said coming off the bye meant the trip to Perth would not be an issue for his side, while the fact North would get both of its Perth games out of the way by round four was a positive.