The Dogs haven't played in the coveted TV timeslot since 2012 with Matthew Boyd, Luke Dahlhaus, Tory Dickson, Tom Liberatore, Liam Picken, Jordan Roughead, Mitch Wallis, Dale Morris and Easton Wood the only members of the current side to get a taste of it.

That means playing in a Friday night match will be a totally new experience for around 13 Bulldogs and star youngster Marcus Bontempelli is looking forward to their top-of-the-table encounter with the undefeated North Melbourne at Etihad Stadium.

"This will be my first so it will be nice for a lot of us to experience Friday night lights for the first time," Bontempelli told SEN.

"It is a different preparation purely because the week's been a bit shorter for us, we've never come off a Saturday into a Friday night game before so it's quite different, the build-up.

"For all of us to try and keep that as normal as possible is probably the focus.

"Being able to play in a Friday night game, let alone against a team like North, is going to be a great experience for most."

North Melbourne's forward line has been functioning beautifully this year and has been a major reason behind their rise to the top of the ladder.

Jarrad Waite, Ben Brown, Todd Goldstein and Drew Petrie have combined for 46 goals over the first five rounds, but Bontempelli believes the Bulldogs can expose the Kangaroos' tall forwards.

"Their strength is going to be their height, especially in their forward line. So if we can expose that to some degree and be able to use our versatility in our back six to hopefully get their taller forwards up the ground and then be able to score off the back of them, that'll probably go a long way to hopefully us getting some ascendancy," he said.

Despite the Dogs' backline being ravaged, with captain Bob Murphy (knee), Jason Johannisen (hamstring) and Matt Suckling (ankle) all missing due to injury, Bontempelli was confident the team's depth would mitigate their absence.

"It's a little bit of a curse at the minute, a couple too many have gone down for my liking," he said.

"But it probably speaks volumes of our depth at the club and what we've been able to build over the last couple of years to have quite a few players that are able to rotate through there without giving up too much in other areas of the game.

"So we're all role players at the club, we all know where we're needed and when we're told to go somewhere else, then we just act accordingly."

North Melbourne skipper Andrew Swallow sees Bontempelli as the No.1 target for the Kangaroos to shut down on Friday night.

"He's such a smooth mover," Swallow said of the star Dog. "So we'll have a bit of a look at him I reckon because of the way he gets the footy and finishes really well and is pretty damaging."