North Melbourne v West Coast.. who will be better in 2024?
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North Melbourne. West Coast are still bottoming out. North Melbourne are on the way up.
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I don’t think West Coast are as bad as people think, they have had an absolutely horrid run with injuries the past two years. Whilst keeping relatively on par with North. I also find it hard to look past Norths lack of KPP’s.
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Harveysuth
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Backline- eagles
Midfield- Roos
Forwardline- Roos
Roos will be better unless the defence is incapable which it shouldn’t
Midfield- Roos
Forwardline- Roos
Roos will be better unless the defence is incapable which it shouldn’t
It has to be the eagles, they have a decent backline, a decent forward line, and with Flynn, the midfield wont be decimated so much(its still very weak, unless Yeo can stay healthy).
People forget that the Eagles had the worst run with injury of probably any club EVER last year, with many former AA players missing most of the season, forced to play guys who should have never gotten games, and relied on them to do a big bulk of the heavy work to not get smashed.
North had a fully healthy list last year, yes theyll have some progression, but they dont have a backline.
If the eagles have anything that resembles a normal injury list this year, theyll comfortably be better than north. No club could have been competitive with the injuries the eagles had
People forget that the Eagles had the worst run with injury of probably any club EVER last year, with many former AA players missing most of the season, forced to play guys who should have never gotten games, and relied on them to do a big bulk of the heavy work to not get smashed.
North had a fully healthy list last year, yes theyll have some progression, but they dont have a backline.
If the eagles have anything that resembles a normal injury list this year, theyll comfortably be better than north. No club could have been competitive with the injuries the eagles had
Eagles by far in the backline.
Midfield is North, unless Yeo can stay healthy(unlikely) in which case it would probably still be North, but only barely
Ruck is eagles
Forward line is even, the eagles at least have more than 1 tall they can throw down there(some form of structure). Allen and Larkey are a wash, then the rest of the forward lines are debatable
News to me
LDU missed half the season
Thomas missed half the season
Simpkin 3 concussions, a broken hand and played the last month with 1 arm
Zuhaar missed 1/4 of the season
McKay missed 1.5 months
Logue missed 1/3 of the season
Comben missed 3/4 of the season
Wardlaw missed 1/2 a season
Eagles would've killed for such an injury list, lol.
Compared to the eagles, they pretty much were a picture of perfect health
It was a long way from perfect health as our best players never played together. Not saying eagles wasn’t and hasn’t been bad for years. But north were crippled by injury as well.
To answer the OP I think west coast have a vastly vastly superior list/team of over 26 players
Barrass, McGovern, Ryan, Kelly, Cripps, sheed, gaff, darling,
Is way better than
Corr, McDonald, Shiels, Greenwood
Coupled with 11 games at home I could see the eagles finishing above north. 50/50
Sure. The midfield will take 2-3 more drafts of top end talent to add to Reid, ginbey, Hewitt, hopefully culley. To be honest you have a hole in your list of 22-25 year old players, like north has a hole in our list of 26-29 year olds. Guess that’s on the back of finals and the Kelly trade for you.
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There was also a number of our younger players who missed some of the season through injury. Archer, Harvey, Coleman-Jones, Xerri, Goater and Powell all missed at least a month and of course George missed the whole season, even Stephenson missed a couple of games. While I our injury list wasn't as bad as West Coasts, mid-way through the season we were down to only 30 fit players to choose from.
As for the original question, I think we are a year or two ahead of West Coast in the rebuild so I would hope that we would begin to show some real improvement and can win around 5 to 7 games this season, but if West Coast can remain injury free, because of the number of premiership players still on their list, I'd expect them to be more competitive and could potentially win around 6 to 8 games. But most of their premiership players are now over 30 and close to retirement, so there is still some pain to come in 2025 and 2026.
Monsterdarlz
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North should be better given that there midfielders are steps ahead of us
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Imo, given lack of depth, will come down to which side has the least number of injuries, particularly to key players.
Weagles should finish ahead of Roos, but not convinced Simpson's message is getting through.
Getting games into young talent & game style more important than winning at this stage.
Weagles should finish ahead of Roos, but not convinced Simpson's message is getting through.
Getting games into young talent & game style more important than winning at this stage.
West coast have good older guys, north don't.
Overall strength when healthy is eagles by a fair margin
They lose in other parts of the ground though
Fair margin made me lol. Both sides are poor.
Out of interest, besides Nic Nat who was missing out of the round 1 side last year?
Check the round 20 injury lists mate, who won that game? Pretty sure it was the side with more talent on the sidelines.
Both North and West coast looked fine for the first couple rounds of the season.
The fact is that North are relying on 1/2nd year players, a GWS reject and a SANFL player to hold their backline together, theyre running an unproven ruckman(with no backup), a forward line with 1 tall(who got towelled up by a guy 12cm shorter than him when the 2 sides met in r20), the rest are 1-4th year smalls and midfielders, and the midfield is LDU, Simpkin, plus 1-3rd year players. Its a bit much to expect North to be much better than last year
The eagles at least have a bunch of older guys, who might not be at their peak anymore but still have a lot to offer, with a good group of 1-3rd year players who, barring a repeat of last year, wont have to do the heavy lifting.
An experienced backline, a young midfield, with a few older stars going through, and a fairly even forward line to Norths, but with some structure outside sit Larkey in the goal square and put it on his head.
A healthy list for the Eagles means comfortably not bottom 3, maybe even out of the bottom 4 depending on how the season pans out.
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WC will perform better than they did last year.
But so long as one of Comben, K Dawson, Pink and Nyuon can do a decent job as a second KPD until Logue returns (around round 10), and so long as North doesn’t experience an historical anomaly of injuries (a la WC ‘23), I think it’s realistic North’ll finish the season a few games ahead on the ladder.
Over the course of the season, the likes of Wardlaw, George, McKercher and Duursma will make North a lot more competitive, especially against the bottom half of the ladder. But the biggest factor in our improvement will be the likely availability of LDU, Thomas, Zurhaar and Wardlaw most weeks of the season, as well as just having Clarko available for a whole PS/seasonal cycle to set a single, consistent strategy.
But so long as one of Comben, K Dawson, Pink and Nyuon can do a decent job as a second KPD until Logue returns (around round 10), and so long as North doesn’t experience an historical anomaly of injuries (a la WC ‘23), I think it’s realistic North’ll finish the season a few games ahead on the ladder.
Over the course of the season, the likes of Wardlaw, George, McKercher and Duursma will make North a lot more competitive, especially against the bottom half of the ladder. But the biggest factor in our improvement will be the likely availability of LDU, Thomas, Zurhaar and Wardlaw most weeks of the season, as well as just having Clarko available for a whole PS/seasonal cycle to set a single, consistent strategy.
