Though well-served by experienced trio Adam Simpson, Brent Harvey and Brady Rawlings, plus ball-winners Daniel Harris, Daniel Wells and Sam Power, the Roos have one of the smallest midfield groups in the competition.
Blake Grima was given a second chance last year, but Matt Riggio and Andrew Swallow were the last dedicated midfielders to join North from the main pool – in 2005.
"Our main needs are our midfielders," talent manager Cameron Joyce confirmed. "But we won't be prepared to jump over players that we rate just to get our needs.
"As the draft goes on and once our first and second-round picks are taken, then there might be a bit of room to move in terms of the best player versus our needs.
"Obviously we've got some experienced guys in there (the midfield). We just need to top up the other end and get a little bit of youth as well to get a good blend."
Joyce added that North may also make another play for a key defender, despite the prospect that Robbie Tarrant and Lachlan Hansen – the club's first selections of the last two drafts – could fill those spots to take the pressure off senior players Michael Firrito, Daniel Pratt and Josh Gibson.
And despite having more ruck depth than most clubs, with Hamish McIntosh, David Hale, Drew Petrie and Todd Goldstein able to shoulder the main role, Joyce didn't rule out recruiting another tall.
"It's probably a strength of ours but I don't think you can ever be complacent in an area," he said. "There's no doubt it's not one of our main needs, but we're not going to jump over exceptional players, whether they be ruckmen, small forwards or whatever it may be just to try and appease our needs.
"Ruckmen are very high commodities in the game at the moment. A lot of clubs are needing them [as we saw] in the trade period."
North has a recent history of throwing lifelines to players culled by other clubs, seen with Pratt (2004), Kasey Green (2005) and Aaron Edwards (2006); while no hopefuls will join the squad for training this week, there is always the possibility Saturday's draft will provide another opportunity.
"[It comes down to] whether we rate players that are 17 through to 25 that are good enough to play AFL footy, regardless of if they've been discarded by a club or not," Joyce said. "That's the approach that we're going to take.
"If we think that they can help us and they're good enough to be 100-plus game players for the footy club, then we'll have no hesitation in drafting them."
