The visit, which has seen Meredith also spend a week with Richmond and Kielt scheduled for time with St Kilda, will determine whether teams offer an international rookie spot to the young Gaelic footballers.
Nixon's camp was the first time that Kielt (188cm, 88kg) had kicked a Sherrin, while Meredith (185cm, 84kg) already had the experience of a fortnight with the Brisbane Lions.
Both did enough to impress Joyce, and they've shown similar promise on the track this week. Time trials around Princes Park's 3.2km circuit fell under 12 minutes.
"I just know from watching other teams train that have had Irish players, the transition of kicking the AFL ball is the main thing that they need to get a grasp of," Joyce said.
"They seem to be doing that reasonably well for players that have only just scraped the surface. I'm reasonably comfortable with that, but I suppose we just need to still see their game sense and reading the play with the AFL ball and the way we play our game."
Kielt said he was feeling more and more comfortable with the Sherrin – that it was easier to kick straighter than the round ball – but taking marks at full pace on Monday was harder than he expected.
And Meredith made clear that two weeks of "full-on" training was something they weren't used to.
Nevertheless, the pair will do whatever it takes to earn an opportunity with an AFL club for 2009 and beyond.
"We've got five rookie spots to fill and we've got the provision to put an international rookie on," Joyce confirmed.
"We're still going to go through the process of the boys being here for a week and obviously judge them in the all the different areas that we see as important for them to adapt, and then make a decision from there.
"We made a bit of a deal that if two clubs were to have an Irish boy and pay half each, it was fair that at the end of the time that they were here, that both clubs would sit down with Ricky – obviously separately – and express their interest and a contract if need be at that time.
"For example, if they were at Richmond for a week and then Richmond say, 'Beautiful, we'll offer you a contract', we wanted to make sure that that didn't happen and they walked into North Melbourne and already had something on."
Joyce added that the interest in Irish players – Essendon signed 18-year-old Michael Quinn on Sunday, while Richmond also hosted Niall McKeever (County Antrim) last week – came from the demand to source talent outside of traditional avenues.
"In the next few years, especially with the drain of talent with the Gold Coast and west Sydney coming in, I reckon it's just important for the club to look at other markets and other forms of recruiting," he said.
"We're still going through the process of working out what's going to be the best option for us with the money that we've got. That's pretty much the main reason – that we need to look outside the normal channels because there's just not going to be the players there.
"We've really just dipped our toe in the water, to be honest. We'll make a decision at the end of this year – whether we take [an Irish player] or not – if it's something that we're going to be prepared to keep pursuing."
