The expanded bench offers North Melbourne the flexibly to reintroduce hard-nosed midfielder George Wardlaw on managed minutes.<\/p>\n
Wardlaw trained on Wednesday after missing the Roos\u2019 round 1 victory over Port Melbourne but is available for their trip to take on West Coast Eagles on Sunday.<\/p>\n
North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson said Wardlaw was a chance to play last week but the Roos erred on the side of caution.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe trained fully and to be fair he trained pretty well last week and we could\u2019ve nearly played him last week,\u201d Clarkson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s right to play and I think perhaps the beauty for all sides and coaches now is in some match committee we\u2019ve saved some time not worrying about the sub.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut now we spend a hell of a lot of time working out what our rotations are going to be.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re bringing guys back from injury, in particular, you can probably look after them a bit more and they don\u2019t have to play as much game load.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s always one or two players between 55-60 per cent game time, so we\u2019ll have the option of using that with George if he comes back into the side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wardlaw is not the only change the Kangaroos could make for the Eagles, with Riley Hardeman and Charlie Spargo fit to play.<\/p>\n
Spargo crossed from Melbourne as a free agent at the end of last season but had an interrupted pre-season through injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth of those guys are available to play, similar situation as George,\u201d Clarkson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just need to make a judgment on whether they come into the side \u2026 our VFL team for round 1 of the VFL have got a bye.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of those things implicate us a little, bit we\u2019ll work that out later in the week.\u201d<\/p>\n