Autopsy North lose a heartbreaker to the Saints by 8 points

[chickenonachain]

I agree. There is no chance we are beating Melbourne. But I do hope irate fans will make a bit of a difference.

Anyway, you just keep on enjoying our shitness.

Mate I absolutely hate how bad we are I hate how we are shit (see my match day thread posts) and the way we going I see we will be for quite a few years yet.
I agree when a coach gives a good spray it sometimes works but if it was that easy all the coaches would do it every week.
It wouldn’t matter what team we were playing the next game abuse from supporters would not help us get a win.

 

[Tiberius]

I'm not convinced that we have lost 15 in a row because we aren't trying hard enough. I suspect there are other issues at play. Giving quality experienced footballers a spray because they are coasting or not puitting in effort is very different to spraying young kids who are trying their guts out but aren't experienced or physically developed enough to compete for 4 quarters. Yelling at people who are busting a gut and telling them to try harder is extremely counterproductive. The old "we lost so give 'em a spray and then we'll win" argument is okay for some, but not for us.

 

[Jasemon]

Sounds like last week brought you to something of a tipping point. The exact same thing happened to me, and the evidence of that in the form of needless angst about our best players requesting a trade is on here for all to see. I think you let the players off easily with your holding the ball motions and cannot understand anyone who clapped them off. St Kilda handed them that game on a gilded platter and they bungled it. Was it a surprise? No but that doesn't matter.

They don't know how to win, and I think the despair that I'm feeling and that you may be feeling, stems from the deep realisation that despite the 'green shoots' and the 'light at the end of the tunnel' comments, despite the reassurances whenever we put in a half decent performance that it'll be ok, improvement is not a given. If there's anything the last four years has shown us, it's that you can't just expect improvement to accompany the passage of time.
We deserved to go through last season winless and barely, barely scraped two wins this year. 2021 was the last properly promising year, but that was brought undone by Nobles' transformation into Kim Jong Un.

My fear is, what's to stop the standards at training, the fitness, and the mental fortitude, continuing to remain on the floor, and what's to stop the rot permeating throughout initially promising young players? Who's to say we win any games next year? Wins are the result of everything that the playing group and staff do behind the scenes. And right now the players and staff at our club don't do anywhere near enough. Now a decent chunk of that is probably down to past traumas, but if Dal Santo was shocked at the laxness of the standards when he was playing, well this trend clearly goes back a while.

The fears that we'll remain in this state of shitness until 2026 or beyond are expanding for me to an uncomfortable degree. Some progress may have been made during the 2021 preseason. But there was * all progress during the 2022 preseason. And * all progress during this year's preseason. Going off that, you'd be stupid to blindly claim that it'll begin happening during the upcoming preseason. The situation is fixable imo, but only with a mountain of work, and awareness from the coaches about how deep the hole that we're in really is.

On your last point about fans accepting mediocrity, we don't really have a choice, for reasons you outlined. We don't have the supporter base of the big clubs to allow us to boycott games/stop buying memberships in protest. If we don't turn up, the conversation around relocation will be sparked again, and that would be far worse than any season of shitful onfield results.

This has turned into a rant of my own, which that wasn't my initial intention, but whatever. I just want to see this broken ******* club repaired and back where it belongs. To a wholly unhealthy degree

Great to know someone feeling my own pain. Thanks for the response to my post. Much appreciated.

 

[chickenonachain]

Are you seriously saying that if a supporter told you you were disgracing the jumper you wouldn't try harder?

As a professional footballer if l needed a supporter’s vitriol to fire me up I probably shouldn’t be a professional footballer.
If was playing local league of course I would be pissed off and try to shut them up

 

[ferball]

I'm not convinced that we have lost 15 in a row because we aren't trying hard enough. I suspect there are other issues at play. Giving quality experienced footballers a spray because they are coasting or not puitting in effort is very different to spraying young kids who are trying their guts out but aren't experienced or physically developed enough to compete for 4 quarters. Yelling at people who are busting a gut and telling them to try harder is extremely counterproductive. The old "we lost so give 'em a spray and then we'll win" argument is okay for some, but not for us.

There's trying and there is trying tho.

I think a spray is something that works in specific situations. But it is a specific thing. You can't give it to fix long term problems. Its sposed wake people up because they are performing below what they are capable of. And Carlton - obviously its had some effect.

If you have any pride in your performance, perform like shit and have people who were hanging on your performance lose it at you then you try harder, however hard you thought you were trying earlier. humans are robots by nature. A huge amount of what we do becomes automated. Even something like driving a car.

Yet when you're driving a car its easy to become complacent and then you will either have an accident or some kind of close call that snaps you out of the complacency. Its not cos you aren't trying to drive carefully, its because you use less resources if you depend on the familiarity of the situation.

While driving its ludicrous to try and be consciously aware of things like gear changing. Those physical actions should be automated because you need your awareness focused on the environment not your physical actions. You have to do it when you learn but once it becomes automatic driving becomes easier cos you don't have to think your way thru the physical process of changing the gears and that attention can be focused on the road and your immediate environment.

Its downright dangerous to do that same thing with scanning your environment, the natural semi automatic processes you need to do that before you turn or even just watching the side of the road can become duller. Its something that I find happens on bush roads where there's lots of wildlife that runs onto the road.

Especially when you are fatigued (mentally as well as physically) or just have other things on your mind. IE Driving home from work and thinking about diunner or something else instead of the same bit of road you've driven for years....

Its not lack of trying but its the lack of immediacy, presence and your full attention that means you don't do things as effectively as when your fully switched on and you don't ddo everything you would when fully switched on. The amount of effort is still there. Sometimes trying contributes to the lack of immediacy.

To me sometimes a spray has the same effect as that that rustling grey/brown bit grass suddenly jumping out at you cos its on the wrong side of the fence and you should have ****en known that before you almost hit it.

 

[ferball]

As a professional footballer if l needed a supporter’s vitriol to fire me up I probably shouldn’t be a professional footballer.
If was playing local league of course I would be pissed off and try to shut them up

Its a natural human response. If anything professional footballers need more firing up because the game has become so professional.

 

[Gasometer]

If you have nothing nice to say on the final siren just leave.

But I won’t be standing around clapping off losses ever*

Simple


*unless it’s a retirement over the remaining rounds

 

[Twinkletoes]

If you have nothing nice to say on the final siren just leave.

But I won’t be standing around clapping off losses ever*

Simple


*unless it’s a retirement over the remaining rounds

Memories of having welled up eyes as the retiring Arch walked off through a guard of honour and clapping, at Footy Park after Port had rogered us royally up the proverbial date for the preceding three hours.

 

[Only Forwards]

Stood next to the race Sunday as they were walking off.

Did so deliberately so that I could yell out thanks to Ratts. Bloke got shafted last year, after being shafted from Carlton, had every right to tell us no thanks to sitting in the big chair again and didn't. Instead he stood up and into a role that he's been burnt twice doing. This deserves gratitude. Sunday was the last chance I'd have while he's in that chair.

My son yelled out to the players to keep pushing like they had because it will turn. I have no issue with showing this support after a game like Sunday.

I have significant issue with the team being clapped off after the previous week and had I been able to go and at the same spot on the ground I am tipping I would have let frustration out then.

The losses are not the same.

 

[Ruckle]

Memories of having welled up eyes as the retiring Arch walked off through a guard of honour and clapping, at Footy Park after Port had rogered us royally up the proverbial date for the preceding three hours.

Yep was tough having to stay to the end so as to wait for that.

Even tougher when the lights went out not long after game completion as electricity I think was still a novelty in SA at the time . Waiting in line with Archers missus who was so well looked after by the club she had to stand in the epic line with us plebs with her kids. Tough night.

 

[Jimmy's Hot Dogs]

Memories of having welled up eyes as the retiring Arch walked off through a guard of honour and clapping, at Footy Park after Port had rogered us royally up the proverbial date for the preceding three hours.

Yep was tough having to stay to the end so as to wait for that.

Even tougher when the lights went out not long after game completion as electricity I think was still a novelty in SA at the time . Waiting in line with Archers missus who was so well looked after by the club she had to stand in the epic line with us plebs with her kids. Tough night.

And after years of therapy about the bus trip from FP to the city (the toothless grins, the lack of personal hygiene, etc) you guys bring it back up!

 

[KekiRoo]

The losses are not the same.

Unfortunately we've had so many the past 4 years we can come up with a classification system like the movies.

We've had everything from G rated to so bad, you're better of watching Salo instead.

 

[danj]

And after years of therapy about the bus trip from FP to the city (the toothless grins, the lack of personal hygiene, etc) you guys bring it back up!

Ha ha we were probably on the same bus! I’ve posted previously about our apocalyptic like experience leaving the ground after that match, RoyalBlue was kitted out in full North regalia and I felt like an umpire escort in the EPL getting out of there

 

[danj]

Time for a rant. It's been a couple of days now since I was there at the stadium to witness yet another loss.
As far as posters on this forum go I'd definitely put myself in the fringe minority. I don't post an awful lot.
A little restrained perhaps but my passion for this club runs deep. Probably too deep.

I've been going to games since my late Grandma started taking me to Arden St. games in the late 70s as a 5 year old.
Been through many tough times. Been through the ecstasy of the 90s. I was even in the cheer squad in 1993 as a relative youngster.

Like all of us the last 5 years have been extraordinarily tough, the toughest in all my 50 years as a North supporter (I classify myself as a North supporter since the day I was born). Week after week of disappointment, pain, often embarrassment, disbelief at turnovers that happen right in front of my eyes. There have been weeks, too many, where our side has been completely bereft of competiveness, and then sometimes a few quarters where we've shown something.
Unfortunately it was very predictable (for me anyway) that we'd find a way to lose that game on the weekend. Yes the umpiring was diabolical to the point of suspicion at times, but the fact of the matter is we lay down at the beginning of that last quarter and allowed easy goals. For too long it has been our senior players who have let our club down, not through a desire to win, but through dumb football, substandard skills and an inability to remain calm under even perceived pressure.
It's our younger generation only that can show the way now and it appears that maybe they have already begun to show exactly that. It will need to start on the training track however.

My anger at this team's performances over the last 5 years has built to the point that it's probably not healthy. What have we won now, 9 games out of 80 in the last 4 years. Something close to that. Take away the interstate wins and the only way a North supporter/member has ever had the chance to sing the song is to get to a game early.

Two weeks ago after our team's embarrassing loss to Hawthorn I stood there with my family and friends and witnessed North supporters applauding our players as they walked off. I must admit to this awaking an irrational spark inside of me. I looked at many of these supporters in amazement. Yes of course the players were not 'not trying' however I thought, sorry that performance was not good enough. If our supporters were going to accept that then, as a club we truly are doomed.

So it brings me to this and I'm happy to be called out here. On the weekend, again we found ourselves sitting near the player's race. Yes we were incredibly improved on the Hawthorn game, despite numerous turnovers and skill errors throughout the game (St Kilda just happened to be worse) however we'd played really well. There was hope but there was resignation that we'd find a way to lose. As we all know, we did. I'm a very calm family man in the real world (except for occasional road rage and at the footy). Our club awakens sometimes unhealthy passions in me however.
Again, as the team was walking off, and perhaps, a rational person would say there was nothing wrong with this, supporters were clapping them off. They'd played their hearts out yeah?

I couldn't accept this however. Without screaming my lungs out I decided to make some rather theatrical 'holding the ball' like motions to say 'not good enough'. I think some of the players would have seen me. For me now, nothing short of a win is acceptable. A VFL/AFL record of consecutive losses is not good enough. Losing again is not good enough. I was so angry and clearly that anger is still there. A guy standing near me at the time looked at me and questioned me like I was a traitor/idiot (and perhaps I was) as to why I was criticising our players. I said to him "are you kidding me, are you just going to continue to accept mediocrity, 9 wins out of 80?". My question is, was it wrong to do this?

I support our players and our club through thick and thin. I've been a paid up member since the early 90s. I've not missed a game in years, except for being interstate or overseas. If I won Powerball I'd give the club millions (if my wife let me). North Melbourne however is a club that needs to win games to be relevant. Too many outside forces (insert AFL/media) would rather we just go away, despite a small though incredibly resilient and passionate supporter base. Though I'm not suggesting that we are in danger of ceasing to exist I was at the Keep North South rallies and the gig, was there at Dallas Brookes Hall when Brayshaw announced we would remain on our own two feet. I remember 95 when we almost merged with the Bears. I cannot continue to applaud our footballers when they continue to lose games and not show improvement.

A part of me can understand why supporters were clapping off the players on Sunday as they walked off after yet another loss, yeah they tried, however it makes me angry and incensed that they did. I wonder sometimes if the players really know how much our supporters are hurting. Other club supporters would not accept this. For some reason ours do. North has accepted mediocrity for too long.

Awesome post it’s too late now in this season but I think if we had lined the players race after the Hawks game for example, in silence arms out thumbs that would have been an eloquent way to get our message across. Not that long ago we used to have a beer with players after matches and sing the song or commiserate, these days there’s too much of a disconnect btw them and the members. Seriously something our club needs to work on

 

[franjon]

Don't worry, it's just a name. Actually more like a peninsula.

On SM-S901E using BigFooty.com mobile app

No it's actually an Island. I was just wondering how you found it. I always thought I was the only one who checked out the unoccupied Islands and their odd surroundings, and the odd people who need to find an interest in something worthwhile, like me But I have an interest in ocean life.