Strategy North in 2022

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Apr 24, 2013
81,024
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Arden Street Hill
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North Melbourne
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Essendon Lawn Bowls Club
A new coach will bring a clean out and another mini rebuild.

Goldstein, Tarrant, Thompson, Higgins will have retired.

I am putting a line through Garner, Wood & Jacobs getting back on the park for any meaningful length of game time.

I have also left out Majak who has an obvious question mark, and be 31, along with Ziebell, and the injury prone Hall.

How will the side look in 2022? The good news is that there's a reasonably good core of players to build a side around.

Ed Vickers-Willis (26), McKay (24), Williams (28), McDonald (27), Crocker (21), Pittard (31), Polec (29), Davies-Uniake (22), Scott (21), Ahern (25), Larkey (23), Atley (29), Brown (29), Turner (26), Cunnington (30), Tyson (28), Dumont (26), Simpkin (24), Walker (23), Zuurhaar (23), Taylor (22), Murphy (24), Thomas (22)

Hayden, McKenzie, Xerri and Wilkinson remain unknowns.

The thing that really jumps out is that we are going to have to add a class ruckman and a development ruckman.
 

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Jul 11, 2017
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North Melbourne
We should definitely be looking to trade out the mid tier players in that late 20s bracket. We are stacked with carbon copies of the 8th to 18th players picked for the team, need to add a few more tricks, x factor and variety to the stars of the list. Some of that will come in time with a few of our young mids looking s**t hot right now. But we need to use the mid level guys to gain some trade value.

And we need to use that trade capital on young rucks and KPPs (and soon) so that when our young midfield develops they have a team around them.
 
Jul 11, 2017
3,992
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AFL Club
North Melbourne
Per the AFL website-
NMFC-header.png

State league affiliate: North Melbourne (VFL)
This weekend: Werribee v North Melbourne - Saturday, April 6, 7pm, Avalon Airport Oval
Little man Nathan Hrovat staked his claim for a senior recall with an assured performance in a Kangaroos team that went down by 39 points at Werribee on Saturday night.

Hrovat was one of the key reasons the Roos led early and, despite a lack of support, finished with 26 possessions and a goal.
Fellow runner Jed Anderson returned from a hamstring issue and played three quarters, having 11 disposals and laying eight tackles in a defensive role.
Experienced defender Sam Wright showed he had overcome a quad problem by gathering 14 disposals and taking 11 marks.
Key forward Nick Larkey hauled in 10 marks and kicked three goals from limited opportunities, while rookie forward Cameron Zurhaar (19 disposals) and versatile draftee Joel Crocker (17 disposals, one goal) also tried hard.
Rookie defender Tom Murphy collected 21 possessions and took 12 marks.
Teenage rookie Kyron Hayden also impressed after being tasked with nullifying role former Fremantle and Gold Coast midfielder Michael Barlow.

Larkey- 3 goals
Murphy/Larkey double figure marks
Hayden tagging

All things we can work with in the future.
 
Apr 24, 2013
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Arden Street Hill
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"Teenage rookie Kyron Hayden also impressed after being tasked with nullifying role former Fremantle and Gold Coast midfielder Michael Barlow."

Kyron had 7 disposals (1 kick).

Barlow had 32 and 7 clearances.
 
Jul 11, 2017
3,992
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AFL Club
North Melbourne
"Teenage rookie Kyron Hayden also impressed after being tasked with nullifying role former Fremantle and Gold Coast midfielder Michael Barlow."

Kyron had 7 disposals (1 kick).

Barlow had 32 and 7 clearances.
Maybe he actually impressed after the tagging, not during then?
Jokes aside where do you find VFL stats?
 
Apr 24, 2013
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Maybe he actually impressed after the tagging, not during then?
Jokes aside where do you find VFL stats?


GR posted them in the VFL thread mate.
 

Pykie

Cancelled
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Sep 17, 2006
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Lord's
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Leeds United
LDU. He is the truth. He's going to be one of the best 5 mids in the game.

He's essentially a more athletic Josh Kennedy with elite kicking skills, think about that prospect for a minute.

Just build the midfield around him, let him play, don't sit him on the bench for close to half the game.

We just need 2-3 top 3-4 picks. I think Cunnington and Ziebell are durable and good enough to hang around that long.

I don't want a spoon, but a #1 pick would be massive for the club in turning around it's perception imo.
 
LDU. He is the truth. He's going to be one of the best 5 mids in the game.

He's essentially a more athletic Josh Kennedy with elite kicking skills, think about that prospect for a minute.

Just build the midfield around him, let him play, don't sit him on the bench for close to half the game.

We just need 2-3 top 3-4 picks. I think Cunnington and Ziebell are durable and good enough to hang around that long.

I don't want a spoon, but a #1 pick would be massive for the club in turning around it's perception imo.

Really, we don't need those picks. We need the players.
 
Sep 21, 2004
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GWS
This will sound pessimistic, and rests on a belief our current list can finish top 4 (if everything goes right) but isn't an actual contender, whether now or 2022.

Ive seen this exact same thread in various forms many times on here over the past 15 years.

'Imagine Wells, JWS, Petrie, Motlop in 2009'.

'Imagine Cunnington, Ziebell, Swallow, Bastinac, Harper, Black etc in 2015'.

Those teams jagged prelims, but were far off the other 3 it wasn't funny. Those prelims came from 4th, 6th and 8th. The 3 prelim losses were by 87, 71 and 24. In short, we haven't been a genuine contender since 1999. That's 20 ******* years.

Generally speaking, I haven't had any issue with player effort or culture. We just haven't had the talent. Pure top 10 silk.

You get them high up in the draft, lower down in the draft, trades or FA.

No team is trading away silk. Our scouts have shown no ability to pick the eyes out of a draft (Fyfe at 24 for example). FA? The cream has ****ed us. Higgins, Waite and Polec have been great. In fact, they've shown we can't draft and develop our own players.

The only one left is hitting the top of the draft. It will require us to hit the bottom 3 for 3 years. Our short and medium term future is assured, so the window is open. Can we find and develop top 3 talent?

Unless we're comfortable finishing mid table for another 2 ******* decades, we might not have a choice but to explore those options.
 

Groin guru

Brownlow Medallist
Apr 21, 2017
10,261
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Destination Club
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North Melbourne
Williams - McKay - EVW
Pittard - Durdin - Murphy
Scott - Cunnington - Polec
Walker - Larkey - Thomas
Taylor - Brown - *a dangerous crumbing forward
Xerri - Anderson - Ahern
IC: LDU - Simpkin - Ziebell - KPP (maybe a jack of all trades like Watson - fingers crossed)
Emergencies: Dumont - Crocker - Zurhaar

Gone by 2022: Thompson, Higgins, Goldstein, Tarrant, Wright, Hall, Daw, MacMillan, Campbell, Atley (unless he can prove worthy again in the backline), Tyson, Hrovat, Turner, Hayden
Question marks: Jacobs (inj?), MacDonald and Wood (fresh starts elsewhere?), Og

Pressing issues: KPP. I feel like we've done a full circle. We picked up EVW, McKay, Durdin, Watson, Nielson, Larkey and everyone said "enough of the talls, we need pace". Well here we are again. If people are critical of the club for not recruiting Scully we could go with the ultra risky approach and try for Patton. 3 knee recos but that low risk/high reward type scenario - similar to Ahern. Back the clubs staff in. He could play out of the square and Brown could push to CHF.

Ruck. We have a good track record of developing ruck's. It's a pressing issue now with Preuss gone and us opting for a stop gap in Campbell. A lot of pressure on Xerri to succeed.

We need some luck. We got lucky with Jed and Ahern turning it around. We need players like EVW, Jacobs, and Garner to knock off the injuries. We need players like Simpkin, LMac, McKay, Thomas, Walker to keep improving and become quality players.
 

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Go_Roos!

Club Legend
May 2, 2017
1,356
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North Melbourne
"Teenage rookie Kyron Hayden also impressed after being tasked with nullifying role former Fremantle and Gold Coast midfielder Michael Barlow."

Kyron had 7 disposals (1 kick).

Barlow had 32 and 7 clearances.
What is going on when we are fed such ridiculous crap by our coaches/media dept., it really needs to stop. Could we at least get into reality? Please?
 
Apr 24, 2013
81,024
153,170
Arden Street Hill
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Other Teams
Essendon Lawn Bowls Club
What is going on when we are fed such ridiculous crap by our coaches/media dept., it really needs to stop. Could we at least get into reality? Please?


They treat us like idiots in the hope we stay happy and keep giving them money.

Disney 101.
 
Last edited:
Jan 2, 2009
12,964
20,910
Melbourne
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North Melbourne
"Teenage rookie Kyron Hayden also impressed after being tasked with nullifying role former Fremantle and Gold Coast midfielder Michael Barlow."

Kyron had 7 disposals (1 kick).

Barlow had 32 and 7 clearances.

Was Barlow on 30 possessions at qtr time before Kyron was moved on to him?
 

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