North out to mark Harvey's milestone
North Melbourne might have felt flat on Thursday night with their finals hopes given a hit, but still enter Sunday's AFL clash at Subiaco with West Coast looking to win on a special occasion.
The Kangaroos need to win both their remaining two matches and hope Hawthorn lose their two in order to be a chance of making finals.
Those hopes nosedived on Thursday night when Fremantle named a weakened side against Hawthorn in Launceston.
However, coach Brad Scott said he is focused on winning as captain Brent Harvey racks up his 300th match.
"I rang my brother (Chris, Fremantle assistant coach) and told him to get them all in, but they do what they do to give themselves the best chance," Scott said.
"It's disappointing for us obviously, but we'll wait and see how it plays out," Scott said.
"We would have loved to keep the destiny in our own hands last weekend, but clearly the team has been focused on playing footy that is capable of performing in finals and to be perfectly honest we haven't proven that yet."
Scott paid tribute to the four-time best and fairest, premiership player, four-time All Australian will go down as an all-time North Melbourne great.
"He's (Harvey) just an out and out champion of the game," Scott said.
"The 300th is a great opportunity for a lot of people to speak glowingly about 'Boomer' because he really deserves it.
"In my time here I've realised that he's a better player than I gave him credit for and he deserves to be spoken about in the same sentence as Wayne Carey and other North Melbourne greats."
Harvey still causes headaches for an opposition coach and West Coast's John Worsfold could give the job to Chris Masten, who returns from an ankle injury and one WAFL game back last week where he had 35 possessions for East Fremantle.
"Its a great milestone and great recognition for one of the real champions of the game. Adam Selwood usually matches up on him. He's out though so maybe Chris Masten," Worsfold said.
"It might be a great opportunity for him to step in and see how one of the great champions goes about it.
"To play on Brent Harvey for any period of time would be a great learning curve."
West Coast has lost veteran tagger Adam Selwood and young defender Brad Sheppard, with developing midfielder Tom Swift and veteran forward Quinten Lynch dropped again.
Athletic midfielder Jordan Jones will debut after 30 possessions and two goals last week in the WAFL in just his third game back from a broken ankle.
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