North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson has flagged that Harley Reid looks set to be given attention in the club's Round 2 clash with West Coast.
Second year midfielder Finn O'Sullivan had 15 disposals in Round 1 and did a job on Port Adelaide's Zak Butters and could again be deployed in a similar two-way role.
“That's certainly an option for us,” Clarkson said at his weekly press conference.
“(Reid) is one of the guys that is a real different sort of player to Zak, of course, but a real igniter for their side.
“So whether it's Finn or someone else that goes to him, we'll just have to work through that.”
Clarkson praised the growth of O'Sullivan, who is set for more midfield minutes in 2026 after a productive first season in the system off half-back.
“A lot of last season, he played at half-back and (on the) wing for us and we think his evolution as a player is going to be in the middle of the ground and he was really keen to take on the challenge of playing on Butters,” Clarkson said.
"Butters is such a game breaker if he gets out in space, he just does enormous damage so we just wanted to try and quell that influence, and we thought he did a super job.”
The four-time premiership coach stopped short of declaring midfielder George Wardlaw a certain starter, despite being fit and available for selection.
“To be fair, he trained pretty well last week and we could have nearly played him last week, so he'll certainly come into consideration for us to play this week,” Clarkson said.
“It's just whether or not we want to change our side after last week's victory, and is there anyone that deserves not to play after that win, so we'll work our way through that and make a decision Thursday before we travel.
“When you're bringing guys back from injuries in particular, you can probably look after them a little bit more and they don't have to play as much game load now because there's always one or two guys who play 55-65 per cent game time so we'll have the option of using that for George when he returns to the side.”
He also confirmed that Riley Hardeman and Charlie Spargo would both be available to play.
North Melbourne has a VFL bye this weekend.
