FRESH from possibly his best game for North Melbourne, Sam Gibson says the Roos are confident they can outlast any side in the competition.
Against Fremantle at Patersons Stadium on Friday night, the Roos trailed at each break but powered home in the final term to win by 13 points.
Gibson - who gathered 31 possessions and kicked two goals, the second putting North into the lead early in the last quarter - said the Kangaroos knew they had the running power to finish off games strongly.
In round three, against one of the League's best endurance teams in Port Adelaide, North also came from behind to win.
After Friday night's win, a self-confessed “cooked” Gibson said there was a real hunger at North Melbourne and that desire had fuelled a pre-season regime which gave the Kangaroos confidence they could match it with any side in the clinches.
"I think we really rate our ability to finish games," he told AFL.com.au.
"We’ve shown a couple of times, if we are really in the contest with a quarter or two to go, we can really finish off.
"We certainly can’t hold anything back. You’ve got to go hell-for-leather for the whole game, but we’ve had such a massive pre-season and we just know that we feel like we can outlast sides.
"So if we’re going 100 per cent and they’re coming 100 per cent back at us, it’s only a matter of time before we can sort of break them and start to run over the top and that’s what we did tonight.”
Gibson, rated by assistant coach Darren Crocker as the best runner at the club, said North had also worked hard on its defensive structure.
But the biggest improvement had been in finding the right balance between attack and defence.
"Perhaps we were being too defensive and now we’re getting that balance of defending when we need to and setting up really good structures behind the ball," he said.
"But also one of our biggest strengths is attacking and using overlap and going forward with the ball. So now that we’ve got a good balance of having the right time to attack it’s all coming together a bit."
While Freo coach Ross Lyon named Gibson, a one-time rookie-listed player at Hawthorn, behind veteran Brent Harvey in a list of North Melbourne’s best players, Gibson said he was in awe of Harvey.
"He was unbelievable," he said.
"The contrast between the game he played against (Ryan) Crowley last year and now this year, it’s poles apart.
"He works so hard and, for a bloke who’s 35, 36-years-old, it’s an inspiration to all of us."
