Can Alistair Clarkson lead North to a premiership? Or has footy gone past him?

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With Alistair Clarkson taking up the reins at North on Wednesday, the question needs to be asked: can he put lightning in a bottle again or has the game gone past him?

Is he Leigh Matthews going to Brisbane or is he Denis Pagan going to Carlton?

He's got a list with lots of young talent but also lots of holes.

He's also got two top three draft picks to play with this year.

Will he try and use his old tactics here, or does he have something new up his sleeve.

(Please note this thread is for footy talk only, all posts about the ongoing investigation into allegations of racism at Hawthorn belong in this thread.)
 
Why is it premiership(s) or bust?

And there isn't much young talent on the North Melbourne list. Looking at the 23 and unders it is still realy thin (talent wise) imo. LDU looks like the only one that could potentially be elite but even he is 23 going on 24 so he would want to make another big stride in 2023

Unfortunately I don't think we have seen the worst of North Melbourne yet

This is a massive rebuild job, but I mean Roos/Goodwin did it with Melbourne and this North team reminds me of a 2013 Melbourne team
 

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Depends how the players respond. If they didn't like David Nobles sprays... What makes the north fans think the players will react positively to Clarkos sprays
Cos they will instantly respect clarko

As opposed to that admin fool pretending to be a coach
 

amaz199

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Why is it premiership(s) or bust?
I don't think it's strictly just that. If he gets us into a position where the list balance is very good (which it clearly isn't right now and needs more mature 26 year old guys) and we can contend for top 4, that's where premierships or bust becomes a key factor. It is the journey in-between that matters right now. The starting point is just being able to compete and avoid the repeated thumpings.
And there isn't much young talent on the North Melbourne list. Looking at the 23 and unders it is still realy thin (talent wise) imo. LDU looks like the only one that could potentially be elite but even he is 23 going on 24 so he would want to make another big stride in 2023
Yeah nah. You've got it the other way around.

We have heaps of young talent but not enough mature depth and talent which was largely tested during the middle parts of the year when things got really low. I reckon a lot of our downfall this year was caused by some coaching disasters and that was ultimately what lead to the review. Our coaching was shizen and made it worse for the team.

You have completely forgotten Tom Powell (injured and managed throughout this season), Scott (most improved player out of the lot), McKay (arguably one of the best young defenders right now), Comben (strong hands and exciting key forward prospect), Perez (great kick and is a good accumulator), Goater (had a fantastic debut with a brilliant first kick), Dawson (playing some good footy for a MSD player), Ford (impact player and loves the big sticks but was injured), Young (another of those players improving massively), Sleevo (after Noble was sacked he was allowed to play his game properly and finished the season well), Will Phillips (has been MIA with a severe illness but he is gonna be a star and has been training well before the start date for preseason), Paul Curtis (outmarked Nick Vlaustin enough said), Tarryn Thomas (injured and had to take leave for personal family reasons big 2023 coming up), Curtis Taylor (who made big strides this year) etc.

Don't just say LDU because it sounds like you're just making assumptions without actually doing any research. Where is Jy Simpkin in all this?
Unfortunately I don't think we have seen the worst of North Melbourne yet
I think we have.
This is a massive rebuild job, but I mean Roos/Goodwin did it with Melbourne and this North team reminds me of a 2013 Melbourne team
I just think that the absolute worst is behind us. It literally could not get any worse and the review helped in fixing some of the major issues with our footy dept.

You are kinda right in saying its like 2013 Melbourne, but this isn't a 2013 Melbourne list.
 
Jun 28, 2013
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With Alistair Clarkson taking up the reins at North on Wednesday, the question needs to be asked: can he put lightning in a bottle again or has the game gone past him?

Is he Leigh Matthews going to Brisbane or is he Denis Pagan going to Carlton?

He's got a list with lots of young talent but also lots of holes.

He's also got two top three draft picks to play with this year.

Will he try and use his old tactics here, or does he have something new up his sleeve.

(Please note this thread is for footy talk only, all posts about the ongoing investigation into allegations of racism at Hawthorn belong in this thread.)
He likely needed a refresh and a year away was good for him. I say yes. This is a young list and he will have two early picks. Perfect reset
 
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Truth34

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It depends if North can ignore the inevitable media scrutiny when Clarkson takes a while to rebuild their playing list into something that can actually play competitive finals football.
 

amaz199

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Apr 5, 2015
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It takes some ludicrously hard work just to even get passed the Prelim or even make the 8 altogether.

It is important to understand that the first thing we addressed was the coaching and we are currently addressing the list management issue and CEO side of things. There are still holes we have to fill in terms of how we can completely setup the football department to allow the best chances of sustained success. We can't expect something to work if the people above aren't ready to fire on all cylinders and have the support they need. It just places more stress on the players to succeed with lacklustre support. It is why the review was done in the first place. To address those issues.

We don't have enough mature-age talent to propel us into a position where we can sustain competitiveness against average but also formidable opposition. I will disagree about our young crop as I think it has some considerable potential as a start. We've already addressed our backline woes with the addition of Logue and addressed that we needed some experienced players and added Tucker as well.

Clarko has been given 5 years. Not 1. Not 2. Not 3-4. 5. The most important direction right now is to get as many talented and depth mature-age players we can so we don't completely buckle when there are injuries.

We went into season 2022 with KPD depth consisting of Corr, McKay, Walker. 3 defenders. We drafted Dawson at the MSD and traded Logue in at the trade period. So this might actually be somewhat addressed now but was clearly an issue throughout the season. We had Bonar manning Harry McKay for goodness sake.

Our forward-line KPFs were Larkey and Comben. 2 forwards! Comben was injured for eternity until he got a debut in the last round.

See where the issue is? Coaching has been addressed but there's still that mature-age crop barely tapped into.
 

Osho

We haven't changed our position.
Jul 9, 2021
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With Alistair Clarkson taking up the reins at North on Wednesday, the question needs to be asked: can he put lightning in a bottle again or has the game gone past him?

Is he Leigh Matthews going to Brisbane or is he Denis Pagan going to Carlton?

He's got a list with lots of young talent but also lots of holes.

He's also got two top three draft picks to play with this year.

Will he try and use his old tactics here, or does he have something new up his sleeve.

(Please note this thread is for footy talk only, all posts about the ongoing investigation into allegations of racism at Hawthorn belong in this thread.)
Since 64, noone has coached more than 4 flags. And there have been some GREATS who've tried and failed.

Jeans is a bit stiff, he got crook one year and his caretaker replacement got a flag, could have been Jeans I suppose.

It seems to be a bit of a modern barrier does 4 flags: Barrass, Tommy, Alan, Lethal, Sheeds, Dave among those stuck on it. Some of those gents got to 4 pretty early, never to get the fifth despite years of trying.

Alistair would have to break this modern hoodoo. I don't like his chances much. That's if he coaches again, no guarantees there.

Alistair is extremely driven, obviously. Facing serious allegations against Hawthorn players and partners of, he jets off to Scotland to check out how a footy team there operates. At worst he will bring discipline, direction and drive to a young North group, exactly what they need. Unlike recent North coaches, he'll also bring unbridled self-belief.

However, it's not easy rising to the top again and again. If he CAN break the modern hoodoo, then he'll be right next to Barrassi in the North pantheon. I remember the 70s like yesterday, in more detail than I remember last week if I'm honest. If he can bring back the chutszpah of the Barrassi era, North fans are in for a great time.
 

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Not to say that he won’t have success eventually at North, but there’s a tonne of red flags in his last 5 years at Hawthorn, particularly in his last 2-3, that might suggest the game has gone past him.

People seem to forget that Hawthorn were vying for the spoon in both 2020-2021 with dour negative football, and couldn’t get wins over the eventual wooden spooners, until the leadership group were able to convince him that the gameplan wasn’t working, so he’d change it at the bye(which became a common theme in the last 5 years) and then the side started to win games and people threw around the “master coach” monicker once more.

I’ll be intrigued to see if he can hit the ground running at North, if his reliance on defensive zones and tempo footy is something that he relinquishes, or if the modern game has passed him by.
 

Falcon3518

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No cattle no flag, doesn’t matter how good his system is he won’t have the personnel to execute it. Maybe after another 5 years with heaps of pick 1’s he can do it. It will take a while.


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com
 
No cattle no flag, doesn’t matter how good his system is he won’t have the personnel to execute it. Maybe after another 5 years with heaps of pick 1’s he can do it. It will take a while.


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com
Cattle is there just needs time

Plus a pick 2 and 3 this year helps along with the 2 first rounders next year
 

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