North Melbourne defender Josh Gibson says the Kangaroos' backline cannot afford to be daunted by St Kilda's in-form forwards in Saturday's AFL game at Etihad Stadium.

Gibson is likely to get another big job and will be crucial if the Roos are to topple the unbeaten ladder-leaders, as he had the better of Fremantle's Matthew Pavlich and the Brisbane Lions' Jonathan Brown the past two games.

"It's the nature of the beast, isn't it? There's never a week off," he said ahead of a likely duel against Nick Riewoldt or Justin Koschitzke.

"They're 10 (wins) and zero (losses), so it doesn't matter who you play on, they're all pretty dangerous."

Gibson, at 25 with 53 games to his name, has become one of the main men in North's young defence, and has had much of the responsibility forced on him as Daniel Pratt and Lachie Hansen have been absent in recent weeks.

"When you're younger, and I've only played 50-odd games, you've just got to come to the realisation that each week you're going to have to play on someone like Steve Johnson when you play Geelong, and against Port Adelaide you get (Daniel) Motlop," he said.

"Then in the next two weeks it's been the tall fellas (Pavlich and Brown). "You've just got to get your head around it and you can't be daunted by the task at hand.

"You've just got to go back, look at their tapes, work out a game plan and it's full steam ahead."

North enter the clash with a 4-6 win-loss record and needing to stay in touch with the top eight, but face a massive challenge to upset the Saints.

Still, Gibson took comfort from knowing the Kangaroos last weekend had pushed the Lions, who in turn were unlucky not to beat Saints the previous round.

"We've got a lot of exciting young kids and who knows what young kids are going to do on the day?" he said.

"No-one's thinking it's going to be easy, but you go into every game to win. That's the attitude we've got."

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