NORTH Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson has defended the club's decision to play star youngster George Wardlaw in a VFL practice match just two weeks after straining his hamstring, leading to yet another repeat injury for the gun midfielder.

Speaking exclusively to AFL.com.au on Thursday, Clarkson described Wardlaw's most recent setback as "the slightest of niggles" and revealed he warned the midfielder to take it easy during the reserves hitout.

Clarkson suggested that Wardlaw's latest hamstring injury would likely only lead to a one-week absence in the cut and thrust of the season, but said the club would take a cautious approach to his recovery given his history.

Wardlaw, whose hamstring problems have restricted him to just 39 games in three seasons, strained his hamstring at an intraclub game on February 6 before suiting up once again for a VFL practice match just 14 days later.

But the 21-year-old injured his hamstring again against the Casey Demons in that clash, with the club confirming earlier this week that Wardlaw now faces the possibility of up to a month on the sidelines to begin the season.

"Hindsight is always a wonderful thing," Clarkson told AFL.com.au.

"I was watching him train here last Thursday in preparation for it and he was doing all of the sprint stuff. He did a couple of things in some competitive stuff and he was just so ballistic. I'm thinking to myself, 'He's right to play'.

"We just need to try to get to the bottom of it. It's a frustrating one for him and a frustrating one for us. To be fair, his last 12 months … last year he had a couple of issues where he couldn't play, but that was around concussion. His body for 12 months up until three weeks ago had a period of time where it had no soft tissue concerns.

"These have been the slightest of the slightest of niggles. Even this one now, it's the slightest of niggles. He could nearly play. He'd probably miss this week and we'd play him next week, albeit that's what we did this time and it didn't work well for us.

"We'll work that out. It's obviously really, really frustrating for George and frustrating for us that he just can't get that continuity. But we'll try and pull that apart as best as we can and seek some advice that's external to our footy club, just to see what we can do to allow his body to be able to get out there and play.

"There's no doubting that four years in, we need him. In that draft, Jason Horne-Francis goes back to South Australia and we get George and Harry [Sheezel] as part of that process. For mine, that was a little bit like getting Jarryd Roughead and Lance Franklin. Gee, if they could be anything like those two, then we've hit a goldmine. But right now, we're four years in and George hasn't been able to get on the park often enough.

"When he has, we can see what he can do. That's why there's a level of urgency to it, to do whatever we can to tick every possible box. But, for 12 or 18 months, we felt like we were on top of it. In the last three weeks, the slightest of niggles and it's got us concerned that we're not fully on top of it yet."

Wardlaw, a former No.4 draft pick, has emerged as a key part of North Melbourne's future in his limited senior opportunities but now faces the prospect of yet another injury-interrupted start to the season.

Clarkson said he'd spoken to the youngster ahead of last Friday's VFL practice match around easing into the contest, but said the club would find it difficult to rein in the tough onballer's physical and bullish approach to the contest.

"I've had this discussion before and I'm not sure how we can," Clarkson said.

"Someone described George to me the other day as a fly in a matchbox. He's just buzzing around. I've just got so much admiration for the way he goes about it. How do you rein that in? He's a bloke that's just been that dynamic and ballistic in his movement.

"In actual fact, I said to him last week to just roll around in this game. We didn't start him in the midfield, for instance. Don't give him the opportunity to be excited and ballistic in the first few minutes of the game. We started him at half-forward, everything going OK, but it's a game of footy. You've got to kick, you've got to mark. If someone's there and they've got the ball, do you say, 'Ease up, don't go and tackle him because you might hurt yourself'? It's the game.

"That's just so foreign to players, to not compete. And George is the ultimate competitor. To actually tell him to harness that a little bit, I tried to last week. 'It's just a practice match, George, just get through'. But the competitive juices and the competitive beast, it's so hard to curtail that.

"It's the same with young Blake Thredgold, who hurt his foot four weeks ago. He hurt his foot just by planting and changing direction going in and out of cones in a warmup. He's done that a thousand times.

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"Jackson Archer hurts his knee out here by landing and putting himself in that position, but he's done it thousands of times over his journey in training and football. This one particular time, he hurts it. Some things you just can't explain. You've just got to put it down to bad luck.

"We're going to do everything we possibly can to get George on the park, because we know without George on the park it just slows us down. Jordan Ridley not being on the park for Essendon, it slows them down. Errol Gulden not being on the park for Sydney, it slows them down. It's every club in the competition. You're doing your utmost to try and get them out there as often as you can."

Subscribe to the Your Coach podcast to listen to Riley Beveridge's full interview with North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson in coming days.