NORTH Melbourne coach Dean Laidley says there’s much more to the Hawthorn side than just Lance Franklin, despite the forward’s red-hot start to the 2008 season.

Franklin has proved the ace in the star-studded forward pack for the Hawks thus far, starting the year the way he finished last year, topping the goal-kicking charts with 10 goals after two games.

Speaking to the media ahead of Saturday afternoon’s match at Telstra Dome, Laidley said Hawthorn was blessed with options and that it would be foolish to concentrate their efforts on stopping just one player.

“The emphasis is not on Buddy Franklin. The emphasis is on us winning the football, putting some pressure on and keeping the scoreboard ticking over, as we did last week and as we’ll do next week,” he said.

“There’s 22 other players out there and they’re a very good football side.

“We’re going to need to be at our best, win our own football, put the pressure on and make sure we get the ball inside our own forward 50.”

Laidley said the Roos would need to hit the ground running to get the four points.

“You factor in all of their players and they’re playing very good football. They’re on top of the ladder, so they’ve opened the season playing well.”

“I don’t know whether they’re a measuring stick but they’re a good football side, and you’ve got to be at your best to beat them.”

Unsurprisingly, Laidley was keen to avoid questions about the use of ‘heat maps’ to track the movement of Franklin.

“It tells you lots of stuff, but if you want to know about them, you can go and interpret them and pay your dues to (statistician) Teddy Hopkins and I’m sure he’ll give you the information,” he said.

“The reality is I’m not going to talk about it, simple as that.”

While Josh Gibson performed well on the Hawk star in last year’s preliminary final, the Kangaroos’ coach kept his cards close to his chest about who’d get the job this time around.

“We can reveal that at 2:10pm tomorrow afternoon. It’s going to be one of our key defenders, I would have thought. It’s probably not going to be Nathan Thompson,” Laidley said.

The returning Scott McMahon is likely to be used in the midfield more than up forward, while Laidley didn’t deny that bulky defender Shannon Watt was left out to help balance the side.

The coach also confirmed that injury-plagued defender Jesse Smith, named as an emergency this week, is getting back to full-fitness with a return to senior football expected soon.