North Melbourne coach Dean Laidley is confident his patched-up defence will be enough to combat a Sydney side missing Barry Hall in Sunday's game at Telstra Dome.

The Kangaroos have opted to plug the holes left by an injury to Josh Gibson and the suspension of Daniel Pratt, with youngsters Lachlan Hansen and Scott Thompson on Thursday night brought into their 25-man squad.

Gibson has a knee injury and was expected to miss up to two weeks although Laidley said he was a "50-50 chance" to return for next week's clash with Adelaide at AAMI Stadium.

Pratt, who was outed for one match by the AFL Tribunal, will also be back for that game.

The absence of big utility Leigh Brown, who suffered a hand injury, will also be felt but Laidley believes he could return earlier than expected.

"He's had a couple of screws put in and the best case scenario is he misses a week.

"The worst case scenario is he'll probably miss two weeks and then there's the bye anyway so he'll be back after the bye."

Meanwhile, Laidley said the `Roos could not afford to concentrate too heavily on plans to stop star Swans utility Adam Goodes.

Goodes was the subject of criticism by coach Paul Roos after his game against Geelong but Laidley is not concerned about a backlash from the dual Brownlow medallist.

Instead, he said, it was the even spread of talent that the Roos would need to ensure they had covered.

"We'll go in with our set plans for Adam like we will for a few of their players, but I don't think we can get too concerned about Adam Goodes," Laidley said.

"They're a very even football side and I think that's been their strength over a number of years."

But he said he felt North had steadied after round one and should now be able to match them across the ground.

"They play a hard, uncompromising style of football. If we think we can match that we'll give ourselves an opportunity to win the game.

"Probably after round one I think we've been fairly consistent over the year and if we continue to do that we give ourselves opportunities to win games of footy," he said.

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