North Melbourne veteran Brent Harvey has endorsed the team he has played 367 games for as a big enough entity to warrant a crack at the hottest piece of "real estate" on the AFL landscape - the right to be part of ahistoric Good Friday fixture.
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As the push builds to break with conservative convention by scheduling a Good Friday game for the first time next season, Harvey met Collingwood president Eddie McGuire's warning that the game can't afford to be ''a shambles" or done "half-arsed" - effectively that it must feature big-drawing teams - by joining the push for the Roos to be on the bill.
"Of course Eddie's going to say that - he's pressing the buttons for the Collingwood Football Club," Harvey said on Channel Seven's AFL Game Day. "We consider ourselves a big club, there's no reason why we shouldn't get it."
McGuire at the weekend called for a Good Friday game to have "resonance" by putting money back into the competition, saying he was "sick of everyone's idea of equalisation is taking money out of our pockets".
While Harvey backed the Roos to fit the drawcard profile of a potential Good Friday combatant, he admitted North was clearly a better-performed team away from the game's biggest stage at the MCG, where they went down to McGuire's Magpies by 35 points on Saturday.
The Roos have won four of their past 11 games at the MCG since 2009, compared to 11 of 14 at Etihad Stadium, with Harvey joking that the 11 MCG games felt like they'd "come over about 400 years", so rarely does his team play there.
"We don't play enough football there, that's the problem. We love getting on the MCG.
"The young boys out there yesterday, looking at the stands, it was absolutely superb just to watch them take it all in. Some of the guys hadn't played there before. Then you go to Etihad, you've got a closed roof, and we're so used to it."
Harvey endorsed star on-baller Daniel Wells to be fit for Friday night's Anzac clash with Fremantle in Perth despite having scans on a foot after the Collingwood game, which a club spokeperson on Sunday said was only bruising. "He'll be right, he'll travel to Perth," Harvey said. "He'll play next week."
The Roos will sweat on how the match review panel views a marking contest clash between full-back Scott Thompson and Travis Cloke, in which the North defender appeared to make forceful contact to the midriff of his opponent. Coach Brad Scott said it would be shattering to think a player could miss a week for something that merely fell under the realm of "make them earn it".
Harvey said captain Andrew Swallow was likely to return from a pre-season Achilles injury in the VFL this weekend, and backed him to be leading the senior team by round seven.
"He's training really well, joining in the drills the last couple of weeks. I think he only needs one game in the twos, when you're a bloody good player like him.
"I hope he only plays a half in the twos and comes straight back in the ones, that means he'll be ready for the Gold Coast game at Etihad Stadium."
