North Melbourne captain Brent Harvey says he needs to ramp up his own form to lead the way in the clash against Essendon at Etihad Stadium on Sunday.

Harvey says he is improving and played more decisively in last week's loss to premiers Hawthorn but needs to keep working hard.

He says he was "a little bit better than the first two weeks."

"I got my hands on the ball a little bit more," Harvey said.

"I need to do a lot more, being the leader of the footy club, but I've got confidence in my ability going forward that I can definitely bounce back.

"It wasn't a bad game."

The clash gives the Kangaroos a prime opportunity to return to the winning circle after a tough introduction to the season.

"We want to finish as high as we can on the ladder but we've played some good opposition this year - the Bulldogs who I think are going to be in the top four, and obviously Hawthorn being premiers last year," Harvey said.

"We've lost to two pretty good teams and we certainly think in our next three or four weeks we can really have a good crack and put ourselves in a good position.

"We've just got to go back to the drawing board, get our skills right, just do what we've been doing and just enjoy our footy, go out there and take some risks."

Harvey said the players worked hard physically so lapses on the field must be mental.

"You'd think so - we're training four times a week on our skills," he said.

"We've got a big game against Essendon, they're up and about and they beat Carlton by four points. "It was a great game and they're playing some good footy so we've got to put all our attention into them."

The game featured the comeback to form of veteran Bomber forward Matthew Lloyd and Harvey said he would be a focus for the Kangaroos as well as the smaller running players.

"He played very well and when he goes for his marks like that he's pretty unstoppable so one of our backmen will have a big job on their hands. "Blokes like Davey and Lovett and Jetta, all their quick blokes really tackle well so we put ourselves under pressure at training and hopefully we'll go out and perform," he said.

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