Autopsy North v West Coke

RightWingRoo

Team Captain
Jul 19, 2020
389
1,308
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Effort was a million miles better than last week. Pleasing to see us try to be more positive with the ball and move it forward with a bit more intent. Even if it was often clumsy and inefficient.
Jy, LDU and Perez were all massive pluses and McKay didn't look like getting beaten against Kennedy until he went off.
Jed hit some really nice kicks tonight. If he can improve his kicking by 5-10%, to complement his ability to accumulate and win clearances. He becomes a really high quality mid.
Set shots were poor and blew another 3 or 4 really good opportunities as well through overuse. A fit BBB and Tarryn will help with that.
Jack needs a big pre-season to revive his career, lost all confidence in front of goal.
 

ChoppyGun

Norm Smith Medallist
Jul 19, 2020
5,673
10,063
AFL Club
North Melbourne
We were the better team tonight imo.

I'll take comfort into that next season even if just 1 effort.

Let our guillitine strike, and fresh players and we'll be back.....
 

ChoppyGun

Norm Smith Medallist
Jul 19, 2020
5,673
10,063
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Maybe watch the game again Chop. I think you are being too harsh mate. He wins the ball at the coal face a lot too.

His slow decision making and disposal is not what we need.

I respect his hard work to be a senior player. I just dont think he is any good.
 

Roos4eva

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 7, 2003
7,447
741
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Other Teams
Liverpool FC, Western United FC
All things considering, it was a much better performance and gives us some optimism leading in to the off season.

Couple that with pick 2, pick 9 (thereabouts) etc, plus potentially the likes of Corr, more games at Docklands and the likes of Cunnington hopefully being back, it might not be so bad for 2021.
 
Bad kicking is bad footy. JZ, Goldy, and Murphy all missed shots professional footballers should have kicked. We kick those goals and we are 30 points up with momentum. Jack's goalkicking is getting worse.

Absolutely (on JZ).

The worst thing is that he continues to stab at the ball. I don't care how out of form you are, I don't care who you are - no player should be allowed to kick like that without repurcussions. Missing while running through a proper process I can handle.

Effort was a million miles better than last week. Pleasing to see us try to be more positive with the ball and move it forward with a bit more intent. Even if it was often clumsy and inefficient.
Jy, LDU and Perez were all massive pluses and McKay didn't look like getting beaten against Kennedy until he went off.
Jed hit some really nice kicks tonight. If he can improve his kicking by 5-10%, to complement his ability to accumulate and win clearances. He becomes a really high quality mid.
Set shots were poor and blew another 3 or 4 really good opportunities as well through overuse. A fit BBB and Tarryn will help with that.
Jack needs a big pre-season to revive his career, lost all confidence in front of goal.

Jed's in the Dumont bracket - he'll be invaluable, absolute fan fav when he's 18-22 picked. Unfortunately we have a few more than 4 in that bracket...
 
Last edited:
Sep 16, 2001
4,269
6,975
Behind the goals at the BSO
AFL Club
Brisbane Lions
Other Teams
Fitzroy, North
Don't really want to echo Snake and complain about the umps but that decisive free against Walker when the scores were about level was a shocker. They got a run on after that goal which may have anyway but grrr... A couple of others in the last quarter????

Goal kicking was very poor and was what lost us the game but let's face it ,we haven't had much practice recently.

McKay could be the next AA key backman. Can he get in the under 21 side? I'm really bullish about this bloke.

I'm confident for next year. Cunners and Brown change the whole dynamic and if the onballers can tidy up a bit we will be a much better side.

The draft become essential. Go young and not look for Polac style picks.

I've enjoyed having the footy in lockdown. Its been a savior as I might have gone stir crazy without it and really enjoyed the bigfooty experience, especially all the gifs folk put up. See you at the back of the cheer squad next yearand on the North Threads.

Go North and Josh Walker, a marriage made in heaven.
 

R00StaR

Norm Smith Medallist
Apr 3, 2003
7,032
6,537
Asgard
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Other Teams
Kangaroos
All things considering, it was a much better performance and gives us some optimism leading in to the off season.

Couple that with pick 2, pick 9 (thereabouts) etc, plus potentially the likes of Corr, more games at Docklands and the likes of Cunnington hopefully being back, it might not be so bad for 2021.

To think we have younger guys in Thomas and Taylor to come back in as well.
 

benbanjo

Norm Smith Medallist
Aug 16, 2009
9,359
10,977
AFL Club
North Melbourne
One of our better games, where has that been all year.
Goldy was very good, got the better of NN i thought.

Should have won that game, but kicking at goal was terrible.

Anyway glad that s**t season is over.
 

amaz199

Norm Smith Medallist
Apr 5, 2015
7,666
19,640
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Tonight shows just what it will take from the playing group to take the next step.

Getting the mix right is going to be crucial for Brady and Shaw. Getting it wrong will see another Joyce and Scott era where we are largely competitive when we're good, but absolute dogshit when we're bad.

We are not that far off. With a bit of development in some young guns and some players lured from other clubs, we could be looking at a really good list next season.

Back on tonight, thought we tried to deny them the ball for as long as we could. We just didn't want to cough it up to them hence the handball happy-esque show. We actually have done this well previously (against pressure cooker Richmond last season).
 
Best I've felt after a loss all year. The boys came out with real pride and purpose. You could see right from the first bounce they wanted to play for each other. As others have said a lot of positives. For me it was Simpkin's best game since he hurt his ankle. LDU, McKay, Perez great games. IMO it was also both Higgins and Polec's best games for awhile. For mine I think we'd be crazy to let Polec go however if his heart's not bleeding blue and white then he can't be there. We've got so much exciting youth. Bring back Cunners next year. Well placed in the draft and I feel good about 2021 already. A Melbourne loss on the weekend would be the perfect end to 2020.

There's negatives of course, many of them, but I don't want to go into them. It's been the most painful year of watching football in my 40 years of being a North diehard, and of course they've been covered ad nauseam above.

A couple of things.

I do feel the captaincy needs to change next year and will be really interesting to see which way that goes. There's a number of things that Jack has found it difficult to offer the team since coming back from injury however his presence on the footy field is still something I feel that no-one else can replicate. He is still a very important part of the club but we need to transition respectfully. One more pre-season to see if his battle weary body is able to roll around again. Tarrant for a year then hand over to Luke or Jy.

Second I'm keeping the faith with Rhys but the club needs to bring in some experience to help him. Premiership experience if possible, or at least someone like a Ross Lyon who's brought a team to the last day in September a number of times. Of course these people just don't grow on trees of and it costs coin but with a massive clean-out about to sweep through the club and a focus now on quality youth I see it as the most critical decision the club has in front of it. An elite system must be implemented with the best coaching, game plan, structures and culture that we can procure.

RIP 2020 and bring on the draft
 
We had a crack and that is all you can ask, as much as the effort pleased me, hard to fathom why we just didn't bring the effort for most of the year.

In the end poor kicking at goal made us lose momentum, some really bad errors were costly in a low scoring game.

I love Luke McDonald's year but he gave Ryan too much space. it is hard to imagine we didn't play, and according to Foxtel are getting rid of Marley when he has been our best defender on small dangerous forwards by a huge margin. I know his kicking is shite but he can still distribute by hand and protect the ball carrier, unless he isn't doing what is asked of him then I am surprised we are letting him go.

Perez looked a lot better with the team putting more pressure on.

43 inside 50s vs 40
7 marks in the forward 50 vs 4

We just didn't take our chances.
 

disco_cowboy

Club Legend
Feb 18, 2020
1,262
2,958
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Other Teams
Leeds United
couple of thoughts..

LDU.. jeez louise - this bloke is gonna be a star, we all know this, but seeing him stand up in tackles - he looks like cunnington. His core and upper body strength is starting to reach afl standards.
Perez - for game 2 this kid is awesome. Hard at it, great kick and quick - ooft another young gun
Our set shot kicking was awful today and it normally isnt that bad, without brown, turner, taylor and thomas in the forward like and instead with Durdin and Murphy it was no surprise.
Jed and Jy - these indigenous boys are hard as nails and are really starting to work as a beautiful duo - great seasons by both and just really looking at home in our midfield.

Glad the season has finished - its been a tough year but we ended well - i thought we played our guts out. Looking forward to trade week and the draft and all the crap we will get in the media lol. after this year we pick ourselves back up, dust ourselves off and move forward together again.
 
Second I'm keeping the faith with Rhys but the club needs to bring in some experience to help him. Premiership experience if possible, or at least someone like a Ross Lyon who's brought a team to the last day in September a number of times.

Experience; Yes
Ross Lyon; Hell no
Shaw needs a counter to his defensive style
 

Shagga is all Class

Premiership Player
May 15, 2005
4,136
6,220
Beneath the Blue and White
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Other Teams
NMFC
Think we have 23 players out of contract.

And Tyson, Campbell and Hall are not among them.

If you listen to the commentators, Polec and Brown have bad years which translates to them playing for Collingwood next year and we pay Polec's contract.

Have they heard of the minimum cap?

Needless to say, our off season will be one for the ages.
 
Back