Inevitably, some players ended up like wallflowers at the school dance, looking wistfully into the middle distance and hoping that someone - anyone - would notice them.
Now, with hindsight and with the finals beckoning for the first time in four years, North has refined the process.
And so it was on Thursday that the footy media gathered in a room at Aegis Park and scrutinised a dance card posted on the wall filled with five-minute tete-a-tetes.
Daniel Wells was the most popular, with eight interviews lined up, including an 'all-in' - indicative of the interest his dodgy calf was receiving. Boomer Harvey had five, Todd Goldstein and Jack Ziebell four each.
Robbie Tarrant had two, including a phone interview with the Sunraysia Daily, while a swag of other players had a single commitment.
Fourteen Kangaroos in all were sought-after commodities, which made one feel a little sad for those who were forgotten, at least by the media.
But when it came to training, the whole list - stars, solid citizens, plodders, reserves and rookies - was in the spotlight.
Finals were back at Arden Street, and even though there was building work going on, and the famous old players' race now looks more like an abandoned sewerage pipe, it was a great place to be.
The souvenir store was doing brisk business in such items as inflatable Santas, decorative string lighting and garden gnomes, and young girls were worshipping at an Andrew Swallow shrine, which comprised t-shirts, collectable pins and 'Swallow' branded footballs.
Other fans were goggling at the trophy cabinet, which houses four VFL-AFL premiership cups as well as some more obscure treasures such as the Golden Fleece Cup, which was fought out between the eight sides that didn't make the finals in 1965, the Arnotts Champion Club award from 1978, and the Courage Award, donated by Courage Breweries in recognition of an unspecified "courageous performance" in April 1973.
Outside there were sausages for sale at $2.50 per snag. "Might as well get one now, 'cos you won't be back here next week," one gent quipped to the ladies collecting the cash. "No, no, we're confident!" came the quick reply. The Roos might be venturing west to take on the Eagles, but nobody, except perhaps the bloke with the sausage-in-bread in his hand, was giving up.
Several hundred fans watched training, many of them schoolkids who seemed to have wandered away from their studies. There were diehards clutching autograph books and jumpers to be signed, cheering as the players tried to dob torps from 60m or attempted audacious banana kicks - the kind of stuff they would love to do in a game, but would never dare.
And one man, sporting a full-sized beer keg rather than a six-pack like his heroes on the oval, rolled up his shirt to expose his belly to the sun. It is September, after all.
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