Autopsy North lose to the Crows

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roomagic1984

All Australian
Jun 4, 2011
886
2,581
Melbourne
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Why is it that we win the majority of the centre ruck taps, but fail to capitlise on this advantage? Then, if we do manage to win the clearance, we find a way to turn it over and/or kick it to the advantage of our opposition defenders?

Is the coaching?
Is the players?
Is it 50/50 split?
Are our forwards not setup correctly?

When I watch other games, you can almost guarentee that the team that has a clear centre break will have a good chance of scoring in that entry.
For us, it's like "where is this one going" or "who will intercept this mark"
 

Souup

Norm Smith Medallist
May 8, 2005
7,794
27,441
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Every now and then someone survives a terminal illness don't they? (Am watching Breaking Bad S3, so no spoilers please!)

Bloody hell mate, I'm excited on your behalf. One of those shows you wish you could watch back without any knowledge of how it unfolds. You're in for a real treat.

Great post otherwise but I can't be stuffed engaging on anything North-related right now, give it a few days.
 

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Dec 27, 2017
24,219
53,368
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Our ability to stop them transition from defence was the highlight for me. With our talls intercepting the dump kick out of defence and our half forwards and mids clogging space for them to run it out.

Obviously it falls down when we need another tall in defence, because when they did get the ball into their F50 their talls had easy opportunities. The blue print is there though.
 
Dec 27, 2017
24,219
53,368
AFL Club
North Melbourne

North Melbourne v Adelaide​

10 Taylor Walker (ADEL)
8 Darcy Fogarty (ADEL)
6 Rory Laird (ADEL)
3 Jordan Dawson (ADEL)
2 Ben Keays (ADEL)
1 James Rowe (ADEL)
 
Jun 9, 2001
37,651
145,100
Fogarty Street
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Other Teams
St Johnstone

North Melbourne v Adelaide​

10 Taylor Walker (ADEL)
8 Darcy Fogarty (ADEL)
6 Rory Laird (ADEL)
3 Jordan Dawson (ADEL)
2 Ben Keays (ADEL)
1 James Rowe (ADEL)

Geeze thought Hall might've snuck in for a vote or 2. Noble was probably on Seek for most of the game.
 

Moti

Brownlow Medallist
Mar 4, 2001
13,847
10,665
Melbourne
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Why is it that we win the majority of the centre ruck taps, but fail to capitlise on this advantage? Then, if we do manage to win the clearance, we find a way to turn it over and/or kick it to the advantage of our opposition defenders?

Is the coaching?
Is the players?
Is it 50/50 split?
Are our forwards not setup correctly?

When I watch other games, you can almost guarentee that the team that has a clear centre break will have a good chance of scoring in that entry.
For us, it's like "where is this one going" or "who will intercept this mark"

Our players do not have the acceleration, speed or composure to get into or create space. Our athletic profile is country football-esqe
 

Snojet

Team Captain
Aug 9, 2015
325
1,355
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Had time to calm down and reflect a little bit.
Last year, when we started to look ok, in the back half of the season, we had Cunners returning from back injury, Tarrant coming back from health scare, Ziebell looking ok off half back, Phillips showing real promise, Dumont playing ok. These are just the ones that come to mind.
Some of the changes that have occurred are our own but others we couldn’t control. Add to that JHF suspended.
I guess it only adds to my confusion as to where we are at.
Will CCJ show that he is something more than a depth player?
Why has TT dropped off?
Has Noble lost the players? Can someone explain, in simple terms, what is our game plan? Just so I can judge our progress.
What does our player development seem so ordinary?
 

North Melbourne v Adelaide​

10 Taylor Walker (ADEL)
8 Darcy Fogarty (ADEL)
6 Rory Laird (ADEL)
3 Jordan Dawson (ADEL)
2 Ben Keays (ADEL)
1 James Rowe (ADEL)
So our coaches have Walker and Fogarty as best 2 players, but refused to do anything about it during the game? Surely at some point some one in the coaches box suggested putting our best defender on their best forward??

And James ducking Rowe can even manage to get a coaches vote against us. That actually might just be rock bottom.
 
So our coaches have Walker and Fogarty as best 2 players, but refused to do anything about it during the game? Surely at some point some one in the coaches box suggested putting our best defender on their best forward??

And James ducking Rowe can even manage to get a coaches vote against us. That actually might just be rock bottom.
McKay on Walker or Fogarty would not fundamentally have changed anything. If they're going to experiment they may as well do it properly - they knew going in that our backline would be stronger with McKay down there and I doubt they were under any illusions that it would not leave them more exposed, there was no point making that change at all if we were just going to move him back again mid game.
 
Dec 27, 2017
24,219
53,368
AFL Club
North Melbourne
So our coaches have Walker and Fogarty as best 2 players, but refused to do anything about it during the game? Surely at some point some one in the coaches box suggested putting our best defender on their best forward??

And James ducking Rowe can even manage to get a coaches vote against us. That actually might just be rock bottom.


I didn’t mind having a look at McKay up forward. Yes it left a huge hole in our backline, but with where we’re at I don’t think it hurts trying different things to see what might be an option in the future.

It’s pretty unselfish coaching from Nobel considering he’s coaching for his career. It didn’t work but I thought McKay showed some encouraging signs.
 

Roogal

Club Legend
Dec 7, 2016
2,115
4,661
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Other Teams
North Ballarat Roosters
You can add a minimum of 30 to that. Eight more this year, and 22 next, are locked in.
Well we can add a new record, the longest losing streak of 60 pt (or more) thrashings in AFL history. Yep we now own that one too. Something seismic has got to give at the club very soon.
 

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RossHenshaw

Club Legend
Sep 12, 2020
2,790
5,695
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Never in all my years of following footy have I experienced anything like this.
I used to watch my WAFL side get pumped virtually every week in WAFL, often conceding more than 30 goals. They had far less talent, but they always gave their all and each game brought real hope.
Despite the thrashings, it was still fun and I couldn't wait to get there each week. Every few weeks they'd threaten to cause an upset and when they did it was the absolute best feeling after an unexpected win.
They are the payoff during down times - that feeling of elation at the final siren of watching something memorable. Gee I miss that.
We haven't had that feeling once this year, the win over the Eagles felt like a loss due to their WAFL team playing. That's in 16 games, including preseason.
Bar the Sydney game, we haven't one other time been anywhere even near daring to dream of an upset. And you wouldn't expect us to win another game this year.
We've barely even played any good quarters. There was a glimpse of excitement in the second quarter against the Bulldogs but precious little since.
There's almost no anticipation around watching us play each weekend, as the result is a given and it's just a matter of what the margin will be. As a North tragic I still watch but it's generally just a relief when it's over. The anticipation of the weekend is not there. A mate of mine who is a North fan compared it to supporting a family member through a terminal illness! I watched yesterday's game with another North mate, he looked like he'd just sat through a funeral by the end of it.
My kids don't watch a minute and son is over being teased about North at school. I just keep telling him one day it will all prove worth it, but a few years seems like an eternity to kids.
Bad decisions made over a number of years by several people have led us to this point and it's bleak.
Players who should be stepping up have either stalled, or worse gone backwards. Injuries and illness haven't helped, but even so we should be able to muster up some level of competitiveness at some point.
The young guys that you hope will catch the eye during the rebuild aren't really doing so with any regularity. You can't tell me we don't have enough young talent to be showing more, at least for periods in game. There are a lot of early picks on our list. The signs were there late last year that we could do it, but have vanished. Do we really miss an aging Cunners that much?
It is clear we desperately need more elite young talent, but we have almost no draft capital it seems.
And we need to retain the best of what we have, which may or may not be problematic given our woes. We will find out on that at the end of the season.
Funnily enough, as a WA-based fan I always said if we only win one game a year let it be the Eagles. I never thought it might actually happen!
Like everyone here I love the club, and it has been the reason for some of the most joyous moments of my life, so I will just keep watching and hoping that the wheel turns. Looking for just the smallest signs we've turned the corner and that perhaps next week will be the one.
We need the right people making the right decisions, but it looks like a very long road ahead.
Every now and then someone survives a terminal illness don't they? (Am watching Breaking Bad S3, so no spoilers please!)
Cmon North!
8BA2C9BD-6ECE-427A-A916-744D76D570A9.jpeg
 

The Butcher

All Australian
Mar 8, 2011
833
912
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Why is it that we win the majority of the centre ruck taps, but fail to capitlise on this advantage? Then, if we do manage to win the clearance, we find a way to turn it over and/or kick it to the advantage of our opposition defenders?

Is the coaching?
Is the players?
Is it 50/50 split?
Are our forwards not setup correctly?

When I watch other games, you can almost guarentee that the team that has a clear centre break will have a good chance of scoring in that entry.
For us, it's like "where is this one going" or "who will intercept this mark"
I've wondered this for years. I've partitioned blame to midfield line coaches (those around since then have largely gone by now), goldy (the constant), hack kick Zieb's, and whatever was the fad of the day. Somehow.. I dont watch other teams, but we seem to give less priority to seeking/achieving a high quality disposal from stopages, yes even in the heart of the contest, than the best teams in the comp. I can understand that, given the gameday mix of development vs outcome and scoreboard situation, there are times where you direct the players to take the metres with a rushed disposal and fingers crossed for the next contest... but for a decade it feels like if a team was flicking it around in close untill a teamate got an unpressured kick away, it wasn't us.

Do they train these stoppages different for different parts of the ground? I'd like our mids to be trained to value their kicks, and train to pass it around to give someone time and space, just as much as we want our defenders to show poise by hand to give an effective kick whenever possible. I understand the presance of mind required to soak in percieved pressure b4 disposing to a mate in a better pressure takes experience and intention that is hard to coach, but over the timescale of years where it seems lacking it's difficult to not point the finger.

How can the coaches make the game easy for our players? Contested marks by talls, fend offs, chase downs and all that are cool but the basics of coaching as i see it is to avoid those feats of 1v1 achievement as much as possible. Find ways to give them unpressured kicks. Find ways to give them easy targets/marks. Find ways to prevent the oppo unpressured kicks. Find ways to give the oppo few easy targets/marks. Just my take, and i wish i could know how training is going in more detail, but we arent trending up in these measures (stats boffins please illuminate).
 
I didn’t mind having a look at McKay up forward. Yes it left a huge hole in our backline, but with where we’re at I don’t think it hurts trying different things to see what might be an option in the future.

It’s pretty unselfish coaching from Nobel considering he’s coaching for his career. It didn’t work but I thought McKay showed some encouraging signs.
Agree. We have holes everywhere, we need support for Larkey (or indeed for him to be the support) and are about to walk into another post season, potentially with change at the top. It is worth seeing what we have to play with so that if we get extra picks from the AFL or can somehow shake loose a quality free agent we know what we have to work with. What if the clear standout at our pick is a player we can only see taking McKay's current role? Or what if we can't get mature KPF depth but find an unexpected opening to trade for a mature defender with a gap up forward and Comben still not on the park? It is worth a bit of play to see what we have to work with and I also commend Nobel and the match committee for turning over players in this manner.
 
I didn’t mind having a look at McKay up forward. Yes it left a huge hole in our backline, but with where we’re at I don’t think it hurts trying different things to see what might be an option in the future.

It’s pretty unselfish coaching from Nobel considering he’s coaching for his career. It didn’t work but I thought McKay showed some encouraging signs.
Disagree. He’s not playing forward this weekend, so we may as well moved him back during the Crows game. The only time we have looked any good this year is when McKay is playing back.
 

the flying ham

Cancelled
Dec 12, 2006
7,403
16,059
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Disagree. He’s not playing forward this weekend, so we may as well moved him back during the Crows game. The only time we have looked any good this year is when McKay is playing back.
I reckon he will be up forward again mav, even for a period. He took 3 contested marks inside 50, I mean he kicked at goal like a full back but he could have jailed another one or two with some practice. I think that 1st qtr we looked really good forward. I guess it all depends on how many Hawkins and Cameron kick in the 1st qtr this week!
 
Dec 27, 2017
24,219
53,368
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Disagree. He’s not playing forward this weekend, so we may as well moved him back during the Crows game. The only time we have looked any good this year is when McKay is playing back.

I concede that he’ll go back this week with Cameron and Hawkins, but I still think it was worth looking at. He showed there’s something there but we’re still at least one tall (probably 2 talls if we want to replace Walker) short.

I’d really like to see McKay get an extended run up forward, but with the way the ball comes into our defence Hawkins and Cameron would destroy us.
 
For no reason other than procrastination and self-flagellation, I decided to have a quick look at some numbers, ie our scoring and inside 50s, and put it in a table cos I'm a nerd. Not that this table says anything we all didn't already know, but it's interesting (and hard work) seeing the numbers.

AZEJe0K.jpg


What bothers me doubly so isn't just (as we all know) that we are worse than the opposition in every conceivable metric (I could have included opposition scoring which averages somewhere around 30 scoring shots per game), but more that we have been worse in offensive metrics in the last 7 games than the first 7. And I thought we sucked in the first 7. 37 inside 50s per game for the last 7 games is just insane - who the hell wants to play in a team that can't even find a way to move the ball into an attacking area, let alone kick a damn goal?!?

In a way, we're where we were in 2020 (but somewhat worse), when Shaw got concerned about how easily we got scored against so he went for a more conservative approach to ball movement, which backfired as it did little to stem the opposition flow while stifling ours, and made us more predictable. In some ways it cost him his job - the players hated it and and morale in the bubble went south. It seems to me that over the last 7 weeks we've gone back to that dry, dry well - in an attempt to prevent being scored against heavily we have slowed down our ball movement, but the only result is everything has gotten worse and surprise surprise, the players look like they hate it out there. I don't know if that's a coaching instruction or something the players are doing out of self-preservation, but it is on the coaches to do something about.

If I could request one thing for the last 8 games, it would be that our coaches just let the players have their heads a little, let them play with freedom - which was what 2021's glimmer of hope was built on (that at Cunners being the best damn midfielder in the game, bar absolutely no one, period). I don't care any more about the score, about winning and losing, I don't care about turnovers or mistakes or biting off more than they can chew (hell I'd actually prefer the latter right now) - I worry about players harting their jobs and getting despondent. You can see that despondency in the numbers. That's a cancer we have to cut out, and now. They need to find a spark, find some enjoyment, find some way to enjoy playing with other so they can start backing each other in and get some dash and daring back into their game. And I'll bet that if they get some excitement back into their offensive game, suddenly they'll get some energy and effort into the defensive game as well.

Well, I can dream I guess.
 

Moti

Brownlow Medallist
Mar 4, 2001
13,847
10,665
Melbourne
AFL Club
North Melbourne
Disagree tbh. Used to be the case but not anymore.

We only have LDU and JHF at the moment. The rest of the midfield crew have poor acceleration, most teams are significantly quicker off the mark across the majority of their midfield and that allows them to open up and close down space quickly on our mids. That is why LDU stands out so much.
 

Themanbun

Brownlow Medallist
Apr 19, 2019
10,051
30,818
AFL Club
North Melbourne
We only have LDU and JHF at the moment. The rest of the midfield crew have poor acceleration, most teams are significantly quicker off the mark across the majority of their midfield and that allows them to open up and close down space quickly on our mids. That is why LDU stands out so much.
I think LDU's acceleration stands out against the entire competition.

JHF is quick. Jed has great acceleration. Jy is quick enough. Tarryn is quick. Sleevo has good acceleration but ordinary top speed. Powell is above average.

Greenwood is the only.glacier that we frequently play in the middle.
 

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