The Northern Bombers' defensive unit of Arion Richter-Salter, Jay Foon and Braden van Buuren took the honours in a low-scoring, end-to-end arm wrestle which finished 7.15 (57) to 5.6 (36) to defy the seemingly ideal playing conditions at UTAS Stadium.

Taylor Whitford and Ben Elmer kicked two goals each between the 13-minute mark of the first term and quarter time to help the Bombers to a 13-point buffer, and eventually finished with three apiece.

Elmer led the forward line expertly in the absence of late withdrawal Bart McCulloch and could have finished with a handful, while Alex Lee and Josh Ponting were influential through the middle.

Whitford admitted his side hadn't played its best football, but was happy to go into next week's bye undefeated.

"We just struggled to move the ball forward today, it's something we were trying to work on last weekend," Whitford said.

"We did try some things during the week to move the ball through that centre half-forward region but we just struggled today - that's okay, we'll go back and have a look and see what worked well and what didn't and learn from that.

"With the turnover we had and the new group - 10 new players into this side from last year's grand final - 2-0 is a positive for our footy club moving forward that we can win when we're not playing our best footy.

"But I think today we showed in glimpses that when we play the way we want to play we're going to be hard to beat at stages."

Jeromey Webberley's Roos struggled without an obvious forward target but were buoyed by impressive debuts from under-18s Tyler Penwright (two goals) and Oliver Preshaw. 

"I think they'll play finals," Whitford said.

"I think their youthful players played pretty well today and their debutants played well - they've obviously got some class senior players so they'll be around the mark."

Bombers defender Tom Donnelly finished the game with ice on his ankle after a seemingly innocuous marking contest midway through the last term.