I hope I'm wrong on this one but I'm feeling a bit pessimistic.

Maybe it's my recent record - I went 0-3 on the road last year (I'm going up on Sunday).

I just think we really need to do something different - we know what North are going to do but I fear we won't be brave enough to try a few things.

We got smashed in the midfield at MO last year - Williams, Bolton, Fosdike all well down and Cressa didn't play.

From what I've seen Harvey's been mostly playing forward this year - I'd seriously think about playing Williams on him which would release Crouch and Mathews to play in the midfield.

Perhaps consider putting Bevan and maybe even Crouch in the forward line to apply pressure on guys like Sinclair, Makepeace, Sansbury etc who set them up in the way that Barry, Kennelly and C.Bolton do for us.

In last year's game we had 108 handballs (107 was our season average so that was normal) but only 153 kicks (season average 175). Being there I felt we were trying so set things up from defence as per usual but just could not get the chain going further up the ground. We had a season-low or I50's in that game last year.

IMO Laidley would be expecting Kennelly to play on Wells (pace factor), which would suit North in that Wells applies a lot of defensive pressure and is also suited to HF. It would also make things easier for them in terms of simply having whoever Leo went to (presumably one of Jones and Motlop) playing from the square, which those two are comfortable doing, with the aim being to take Barry out of the play.

Putting Barry on Wells would be a big risk but would certainly throw North a bit ? I?d think they?d be hesitant to put Wells in the square as: a) he isn?t used to playing there, and b) they?d like him chasing down defenders running off HB.

With a midfield of Simpson, Stevens, Grant, Firrito, Harris etc it's pretty obvious how they like to play - if we can get things going from defence then the run of Williams, Crouch, Kennelly, Schneider, McVeigh and Bevan will be very important.