North Melbourne defender Scott Thompson says the side's game style can topple Sydney North Melbourne defender Scott Thompson. NORTH Melbourne defender Scott Thompson believes the Kangas' run and stun game-style that almost toppled Geelong on Sunday is the key to beating Sydney Swans in Hobart on Saturday. Thompson said the Kangaroos were at their best against the Cats when they moved the ball quickly - that could be the key upsetting the AFL's reigning premier. The winless Kangaroos are desperately trying to avoid going 0-3 down after this weekend. The last time they lost their opening three games of the season was in 2011, when a horror 0-4 start saw them finish ninth on the ladder and miss the finals by a nose-hair. "It's not a good way to start off the season being 0-2, but it's a long season and we've still got 20 games to go," Thompson said. Meeting Sydney in Hobart is a good chance to get our first win. Playing the reigning premier is always going to be daunting but we see it as a really good challenge. You always want to play against the best and they're the best from last year so it's a good chance to see where we're at. The Kangas lost their opening game to Collingwood by 16 points and went down to Geelong by six in a thriller at Etihad. In the first round against Collingwood we didn't play the best footy. Our skills let us down a bit," Thompson said. Against Geelong we played a really good first half and just got over-run at the end but our game plan and our execution was a lot better. When we were working the ball around and using our pace and our runners - Wells, Atley, Mullet and players like that - that's our best footy. Moving it fast and getting into our forwards quickly is going to be very important on Saturday. Forwardline forager Lindsay Thomas has been on fire in the first two games, kicking nine goals. Thompson rated big Kangaroo Drew Petrie, who has five, as a star of the game. "It's always good to see Drew taking his marks," Thompson said. He kicked four at the weekend and he was in pretty good form in the first half. We just have to get him the ball to a one-on-one contest and he'll do the rest. I rate him as one of the best forwards in the game and I can't speak highly enough of him. He's a superstar. Thompson was also full of praise for backline colleague, 21-year-old defender Aaron Mullett, who was awarded the Rising Star nomination from round two. The Swans were buopyed by the news that gun midfielder Daniel Hannebery was poised to ink a new three-year deal.