WHEN Nathan Thompson, the Kangaroos' leading goalkicker from the past two seasons, famously went down in the club's final pre-season hit-out this year, many football pundits were forecasting a torrid 2007 for the boys from Arden Street.

“Where are the Roos' goals going to come from?” was the common cry.

But with the club entering this Friday night's blockbuster against Essendon with the equal-third highest points 'for' across the first six rounds of the season, some of those same commentators are having to reassess their initial dire warnings.

"We knew we'd all have to step up when Nathan was injured," said versatile Roos big man Leigh Brown. "So far we've been able to do that, which has obviously been encouraging.

"From the bigger blokes like me, and Haley and Drew Petrie, when he's been down there, to guys like Shannon Grant and Corey Jones; we knew we'd all have to get more out of ourselves as a group to make up for Thommo.

"But we've also had guys like ‘Boomer’ and Wellsy kicking a few from the midfield and that helps as well.

"Even some of the new guys, like Matty Campbell and Lindsay Thomas, when he was playing, have been dangerous around goal. So we think we're getting a good contribution from a number of players, rather than relying on one player to kick the bulk of our score."

To illustrate this communal approach to scoring goals, the Roos have eight players who have booted five goals or more this season. Only Geelong, which kicked 35 goals last weekend, has more, with nine.

Rather than relying on the big pack mark or miraculous goal from the boundary, Brown says a major focus of his hard-working forward line comrades is to make it as difficult as possible for the opposition to run the ball out of the Roos' attacking zone.

The theory is that this constant pressure on the opposition ball-carrier can help create more chances for the team's marauding pack of forward crumbers.

"It's a focus of everyone down there to be fierce with their tackling and harassing. It's a favourite saying of the coach that if you've touched the ball 20 times in a match it means you've only had the ball for about two minutes for the entire game so what are you doing for the rest of the time,” Brown said.

"There's a lot of work to do off the footy and guys like Matty Campbell are leading the way and helping us all step up in that area. Shannon Grant has also been fantastic and Brent Harvey is a leader in this regard as well, so we can all look at how they attack that defensive side of their game.

"If you look at the game at the weekend, you'll see a number of opportunities were created from that forward pressure, so it's something we're really concentrating on."

After a shaky start to the season, the rewards have finally started to come for the Roos faithful. That said, Brown says he can understand if their faith was tested in the team's 0-3 start to the season.

But despite what might have been said outside the club, he says the players never lost confidence in their ability to turn their season around.

"We'd been playing some good footy even though we weren't getting the results we wanted,” Brown said.

"Although the confidence didn't drop away over the first three rounds, you do walk a bit taller after a win. The last three weeks have really cemented it into everyone's heads, internally at least, that we are on the right path.

"The things we have practiced hard over the pre-season are going to win us games of footy. If we stick to those structures and those boundaries we are going to win more than we lose but there's obviously still a lot of work to be done."

From an individual perspective, Brown says he has enjoyed settling into his new permanent role up forward after spending past seasons as a spare parts player.

"I spent most of my pre-season training to play up forward so I was expecting to play a lot of my football up there this year. That's what I see my role as going forward. It's nothing new to be playing up there, but I'd just like to be kicking more goals.

"Dean has said that he'd love me to take a few more marks and kick a few more goals so I know what I have to keep working on.

"But when it comes down to it, we've all got to play our role up there and work together as best we can. There are no big egos or anything down there – we just want to work towards the one result and that's a win for the club."

The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the club.