DESPITE a glaring weakness in the Brisbane Lions' ruck division, North Melbourne's Hamish McIntosh knows he must go well beyond beating his direct opponent at Docklands on Saturday.

Injuries have left key position player Mitch Clark and utility Jared Brennan to shoulder the ruck, while North has a string of options with McIntosh, back-up Todd Goldstein, acting captain Drew Petrie and full-forward David Hale.

McIntosh said his coaches and teammates had discussed the importance of midfield pressure more than the ongoing danger of key forwards Jonathan Brown and Daniel Bradshaw.

Brown and Bradshaw have combined for 22 goals in their last two games against the Roos.

"They have a quality midfield with (Simon) Black, (Luke) Power, (Jed) Adcock and a few other guys through there," McIntosh said.

"If they get the ball out of the middle and hit up Bradshaw and Brown, there's not a lot our defenders can do.

"We talked about making sure they're not getting too much clean ball in – so the balls are coming in high and loopy to give our defenders a chance to spoil in the one-on-ones."

Restricted to 14 games by a knee injury last year, McIntosh has been one of North's better performers this season and sits sixth in the competition for total hit-outs (202).

He's also averaging 17 touches and one goal per game.

In a bid to revisit the form of his breakout 2007 campaign, the 24-year-old put in extra pre-season work with ruck coach Corey McKernan and midfield mentor Anthony Rock.

Rock, who crossed from a similar role at St Kilda, has encouraged McIntosh's additional efforts at stoppages.

"Most years I've been playing, I've been able to win the footy as a ruckman," McIntosh said.

"He (Rock) really wanted me to improve my tap work to really give our midfielders a good shot at it. That was one of the weaknesses of my game.

"So far it's improved a little bit but I've still got a long way to go."

McIntosh added a similar message had come from meetings with coach Dean Laidley, with a sidenote to not become complacent about his performances.

There was no chance of that, said McIntosh, who revealed he still suffered from match-day nausea that lingered until a few minutes into the game.

"Every week I go out and train and every week before I play I'm still as nervous as ever," he said.

"It (complacency) doesn't come naturally to me. I know I always feel pretty sick when I'm out on the ground because I'm that nervous and I want to succeed.

"Before every game I'm always dry-retching or throwing up. It actually makes me feel better because I know if I don't, there's probably something wrong."

McIntosh said the continued emergence of Goldstein had relieved pressure on North's talls and settled a structure that allowed Hale to stay forward and Petrie to be used where needed.