THE NORTH Melbourne team that went so close to knocking off the premiers last Friday night is set to be boosted by the return of key players for Saturday's clash with Fremantle.

Midfielder Daniel Wells is certain to return and, while forwards Nathan Thompson and Corey Jones are both chances, coach Dean Laidley wouldn't be drawn into assessing the probabilities.

"I'm not a betting man, but Nathan Thompson trained yesterday," he said. "He's actually crook this morning, but he'll come in this afternoon, and we'll assess him as we go along.

"But he's a pretty big chance of playing."

Jones isn't as likely, it seems, with Laidley noting the match committee would weigh things up once they had the report from the medical staff.

"Corey's a funny one – he had that injury last year, he had no pre-season, he came in and his form was reasonable," he said. "It certainly has dropped off a little bit, so we decided to rest him last week because of his foot and ankle and all that sort of stuff that's going on down there."

And Laidley warned against expecting too much from Wells, missing since round nine with a knee injury.

"He's 100 percent ready to go," he said. "We're really pleased to have him back in the side – he adds to our leg speed, with (Gavin) Urquhart, (Matt) Riggio, (Matt) Campbell, (Lindsay) Thomas, (Brent) Harvey – it puts a new look on the side, and I think that's probably going to help us going forward.

"But we shouldn't expect too much of him – he's missed a few weeks and always, coming back from knee injuries, it takes a while to get back.

"He'll play 70-75 percent of his game, and he'll get some quality touches for us.

"If he can play his part in that, we'll be really pleased."