DEE-TERMINED

MELBOURNE defender Michael Hibberd says it will be a “stretch” for the Dees to finish in the AFL top four — the aim is to make the finals.

The Demons face down-butdangerous North Melbourne at Blundstone Arena on Saturday in a battle of seventh against 17th.

The in-form halfback said the Kangas’ best is as good as any.

“When they are up and about they can shock a few teams,” Hibberd said. “They beat us earlier in the year. We are going to have to be on our game.”

There is a buzz around Melbourne about what the Dees might achieve this season. The players feel it, too.

Hibberd wants to play in his sec- ond finals series, having played for Essendon in the 2014 elimination final, which the Bombers lost to North Melbourne.

“We don’t want to put a cap on what we can do,” he said.

“The competition is so even at the moment. We are focused on winning as many games as we can.

“We’d like to be in the top four.

“We know it’s a stretch. We definitely want to play finals and all we can do is focus on winning every game until the end of the year and wherever we end up, we end up.

“Hopefully we go into the finals — if we play in the finals — with some good form and hopefully we can surprise a few people.”

In making the switch from Essendon, where he played 84 games, this season Hibberd had a point to prove.

“The move was something I was looking forward to. A bit of a change and to prove to a new club I still had a bit of good footy left in me,” he said.

“The training group has been good for me and the system I’m playing under now under ‘Goody’ [Simon Goodwin] really suits me with the attack off half-back.”

Hibberd felt like he slotted into Melbourne’s defensive structure perfectly. “I put in a lot of hard work in the pre-season to try to get as fit as I could because having a year off was something foreign to me,” he said.

“Last week was probably the best I’ve been in the contest and around the ball, making decisions and I got my hands on the ball quite a bit as well on the back of my contest work and my teammates and the way we work as well.

“It was probably the best four-quarter effort this year.”