ROOS REBUILDING: KANGAS CLEAR THE DECKS FOR SOME BIG BUYS

FORGET a war chest, North Melbourne is building a salary cap version of Aladdin’s cave.

As Port Adelaide stocks up for an assault on the premiership, the Roos have unapologetically gone into full rebuild mode.

And, as a result, it will see them stockpiling perhaps the largest amount of future cap space we have seen.

North Melbourne had so much space this year it was able to offer Josh Kelly and Dustin Martin up to $1.5 million each a season in long-term deals.

It is well documented the Roos swung for the fences and struck out, deciding then it was time to simply play the 22 kids with fewer than 50 games on their list.

So gone are Andrew Swallow, Sam Gibson, Lindsay Thomas, Lachie Hansen and Aaron Mullett, and the $1.5 million or so of salary obligations that went with them.

Combine all that with the departures of its four decorated veterans from the previous year and Daniel Wells’s departure for the Pies.

It begs the question: how can North Melbourne actually spend the $12.6 million salary cap allocated to it in 2018.

The answer is this: pre-paying of contracts that the Roos hope will eventually hand them room to secure the megastar they could not secure this year.

If the Roos want to develop the kids, they need to play Mason Wood, Taylor Garner, Paul Ahern, Trent Dumont, Ryan Clarke, Jy Simpkin and the rest of their Joeys.

Given the Roos had more than $2 million of salary cap room already and created at least $1 million more, the salary cap space is extraordinary.

If you took the payouts to Swallow and Thomas, and prepayments away, how much of the salary cap would they be paying in real terms?

Vast sums less than the 95 per cent minimum salary cap spend.

Roos supporters can only be patient next year given their draft hand of No.4 and 23 is solid but not amazing.

It is what will happen at the end of next year that they have to sustain them.