Autopsy Flogged by way more composed swans, back to the bad old days.

[rickety]

Like all of us I'm completely sick and tired of losing with seemingly no end in sight.

It cannot continue any longer.

What do we do as a club to make effective and quantifiable change in the short to medium term?

Take away their soup privileges

 

[north_lad]

Is it just me or are we waaaaaay over-coached? The players don't seem to know up from down anymore, they look absolutely baffled most of the time

 

[koshari]

We were at this exact juncture against a young Sydney side in 2019 (I think?) in Hobart who were younger and hungrier than us. We lost (of course), they've played in two grand finals since and we have possibly finished bottom four every year since except that one?

It is just really demoralising. Had a guy in front of me try to punch on with a Sydney fan, don't think he landed a single blow but he showed more fight than the whole team did.

I'm just worn out and feel nothing now, I'm not even angry. It's just so much easier on my state of mind to be less invested. I've been to three games this year and had a good-ish time at all of them but sometimes I really just wonder if North Melbourne football exists anymore. I just expect us to be shit and it's kind of a pleasant surprise when we're not, but I just know the next shit loss is coming

so his skills were on a par with ours as well, oh so fitting.

 

[rickety]

They stayed in a huddle for quite some time after the match.

View attachment 2273735

"Which way is out boys? "

 

[Mute Point]

The standards you accept are the standards you set

 

[Billy Not Really]

Good lord I’d say we’re frauds but being a fraud means you have to at least look good a few times before being proven as a fraud.

We’re just embarrassing. As soon as I realised I was looking at my phone within 5 mins of watching the game the back of my brain knew it was watching shit footy and had to look elsewhere.

 

[footy2016]

Seen alot of posts questioning Clarkson and rightfully so.

However the turnovers- 10 goals off turnover and the weak contests have 0 to do with the coaching staff.

The playing group is mentally soft and just lacks polish and losing is normal for them.

We are years away.

 

[Horizons_00]

 

[LETSGOKANGAS]

Crowd was a positive.

Everything else can get ****ed.

Cant be a serious club with all the hacks lining up each week. We are put together with players that no other club wants and until they are replaced with actual hungry B grade minimum footballers, we’ll continue to suffer and die.

Hate pitting individuals but these guys have to be upgraded:

Scott
Zurhaar
RHJ
Corr
Tucker
Stephens

There are more of course but these are the guys that should be our depth to actual footballers.

 

[shinboner magic]

Who gives a ****

They don’t

It was like u18s against u12s out there today.

Skill level ****ed

Running ****ed

Hardness ****ed

Swines **** all those campaigners and all their campaignery fans

 

[zoomba23]

Crowd was a positive.

Everything else can get ****ed.

Cant be a serious club with all the hacks lining up each week. We are put together with players that no other club wants and until they are replaced with actual hungry B grade minimum footballers, we’ll continue to suffer and die.

Hate pitting individuals but these guys have to be upgraded:

Scott
Zurhaar
RHJ
Corr
Tucker
Stephens

There are more of course but these are the guys that should be our depth to actual footballers.

Tough on Corr. Is easily AFL quality going both ways. But scapegoating him is standard for this forum

 

[Daniltchenko You Beauty]

He has zero hurt factor, he hates body contact, he can run but it's not to dangerous spots, Sydney's wingmen destroyed us in transition, he doesn't get the ball high enough up the ground to kick to dangerous spots for the forwards, and he doesn't generate overlap run. He is really, really bad and the sooner we have FOS in his spot the better.

Certainly true last year but not tonight. A million other issues before Dyl.

 

[Horizons_00]

Seen alot of posts questioning Clarkson and rightfully so.

However the turnovers- 10 goals off turnover and the weak contests have 0 to do with the coaching staff.

The playing group is mentally soft and just lacks polish and losing is normal for them.

We are years away.

Stop putting lack of blame on the coaching and the top leaders of our club.

If you think clubs like GC and Hawks have just players that automatically have good strong mentality out of no where you’re kidding yourself

A lot of it is to do with the coach etc it’s always top down. That’s the way of the world. Can’t have a shit top and a awesome team or staff, that’s not reality haha

 

[Samsquanch]

I strongly disagree that it was polish with the footy that was the issue and think it was probably all the self polishing we did during the week.

I don't even think Sydney showed a lot of polish. They were pretty ordinary in many aspects of the game. But they did tackle, they spread to provide options running out of defence (often three of their players were on the outside providing a running exit while we were lucky to have one bloke chasing.

They were able to hit targets and hold marks (which I suppose is polish, kind of) whereas we made hitting a target or holding a mark look like it required Olympic level skills.

Honestly, North play football at training level intensity. They seem to panic when they are tackled as if they don't actually expect to be caught. Opponents break tackles (more than we should expect). We give up frees when tackled and when tackling. Maybe that's because the umpires are shithouse but maybe our guys don't know what to do in either situation.

And geez, we can't even seem to be able to buy a mark in crucial situations, up forward or down back.

And turnovers inside defensive 50 after 3, 4 or even 5 backwards and forwards chip kicks are almost predictable.

I wonder how some of the players would rate their teammates, and also how they would rare their own game tonight?

Cam Zurhaar especially.

 

[footy2016]

Stop putting lack of blame on the coaching and the top leaders of our club.

If you think clubs like GC and Hawks have just players that automatically have good strong mentality out of no where you’re kidding yourself

A lot of it is to do with the coach etc it’s always top down. That’s the way of the world. Can’t have a shit top and a awesome team or staff, that’s not reality haha

Not putting no blame on the coaching staff. Simply saying you can replace Clarkson and these issues will still be present.

Seen a lot of this group let down 4 coaches now

 

[LETSGOKANGAS]

Tough on Corr. Is easily AFL quality going both ways. But scapegoating him is standard for this forum

Perhaps. Still needs to be upgraded.

 

[Only Forwards]

3. Our own kick out structure is non existent

It exists.

Most of the time the ball goes to the pocket.

We then look for the short around the boundary and if that’s not there we look for the 45. The 45 has cost us a goal in each match this year. The opposition know exactly what we will do and set up for it and we do it anyway.

In all honesty we’d likely have a better hit rate out of defence running a cluster in either the middle or on the flank. There would be turn overs but our ability to get the ball to the wing would likely increase. This is an under 12s tactic.

That’s where we are. A tactic used by kids would likely be more effective than what we are currently doing.

 

[danj]

Politically we need to be very careful, the backlash against the stadium in Tasmania is going to get a lot of traction, one out for the AFl/government will be the northern devils based at Bellerive until the new stadium can be worked out (in 50 years) we are digging our own grave with the crap we keep dishing up

 

[shintemaster]

Posatives.

Sheezel back in form.



Did i mention sheezel back in form?

Trying to isolate chom at the expense of the defensive matchups isnt working.

Mids getting comprehensivly beaten. Campbell and heeney carry the ball through transition un unabated.

Forward structure non existant.

Absolutely spot on. If we were slotting him into a well drilled defensive unit it might work. If we weren't letting teams waltz it out of the middle all day it might as well. I don't think we have to cancel the experiment of him down back it begs the question as to whether he needs to learn it entirely in the 1's. I think he will have some great days there, but it is naive to think we will be able to force it on our terms every week.

I hope they know what they're doing and I'm okay with it given we have few other tall KPD options and have Darling to hold things down a bit but I just don't see it. Personally I think Comben as the ruck relief floating tall has much more danger and long term appeal. Xerri takes a rest and you have a fast as hell tall in Comben that will aggressively hunt the ball and man...

 

[Errol Street]

e is a really good tactically minded coach, but at the same time it must be easy to run it and set it up when you have the Headless Harolds running around out

Work rate was the only difference tonight

You didnt see the game then?

 

[Roosurgence]

Nothing good tonight.

Sheezel was even fumbly, over used it & wasteful. Not even close to one of his better games. At least he got himself into the game a lot more.

Hard to find a bright spot outside of that.

Whitlock was deplorable. Why can’t he kick 20m ?? All we’ve probably done is ruin his confidence too. Great.

Have a look at his Captain that was the king of turnovers tonight.

How many short kicks did Jy hit up Sydney players with?

Deplorable are words that I would reserve for players like RHJ. Again shirking contests when he needed to go.

 

[Spud11]

Why can’t it continue? Watch. It will.

 

[Marstermind]

Work rate was the only difference tonight

You liked the game plan, skill level and ball movement? Yikes!

 

[Caracas]

3 minutes to halftime, we were up to our neck in the game. We were winning the quarter and attacking. Sydney changed their game and started to just hold possession and pick their way through us. They went end to end and our structure completely collapsed. I’ll be very interested in what Clarko has to say about that. They completely negated our strengths - Xerri and Larkey.

 

[shinboner spiggs]

It really makes the last quarter vs Melbourne one of the most amazing things in football. How this embattled team somehow put a quarter together where nothing went wrong is one of the great miracles of sport.