Review Round 9, 2025 - North Melbourne vs. Brisbane Lions

[irish]

Also big f for team selection , too top heavy with both rucks and Gardiner rolling around getting nowhere fast .throw in Kai with little or no game time and we were slow as a wet week

 

[3KZ is Football]

Thought the Harris 50 meter penalty moment was reflective of the majority of our players attitude / mindset during the game tonight. Just really poor and we seriously lowered our colours.

He shouldn’t have been put in the position he was by Payne. Then again, with the current rule on ‘not 15’ it puzzles me why players plant the seed in the mind of the player with the ball, in this case, Payne, by leading at them and rapidly closing the distance to a certain, “Not 15!”

Far better to run laterally or into space up the ground.

 

[3KZ is Football]

McKenna's the man because he can go forward or back and provides run.

Daylight between he and Dizz.

100% correct.

 

[martinson]

Also big f for team selection , too top heavy with both rucks and Gardiner rolling around getting nowhere fast .throw in Kai with little or no game time and we were slow as a wet week

I know I'm going to sound like a tool but this one keeps cropping up all the time . So I've decided to speak up in protection of the Australian vernaculars.

It's a wet wig not a wet week. Ever tried to throw a wet wig ?

As to the point you were making Irish I totally agree.

 

[JB42]

Gap between our best and worst in the midfield is pretty stark. I probably had it as a watch after two commanding weeks but it's a problem at this point. Need the boys to be switched on every week. Fort isn't providing anything that Gallop can't; award the young bloke and keep Fort on ice incase injury strikes Big O

Ashcrofts need to work on the defensive side of the game, a bit to much down hill skiing.

 

[Mr Ripper]

I know I'm going to sound like a tool but this one keeps cropping up all the time . So I've decided to speak up in protection of the Australian vernaculars.

It's a wet wig not a wet week. Ever tried to throw a wet wig ?

Oh dear

 

[martinson]

Oh dear

Ha . Someone has to protect our colloquialisms.

Just doing my civil duty.

 

[BRAB]

You live in your own distorted reality though my friend. Much like how BRAB thinks he's Chris Fagan.

Thanks for the tag young Nunez.

I as coach have to take full accountability for the loss.

In an effort to get our percentage up, I told the boys to “give me a result that makes opposition percentage irrelevant at the end of the year”

They clearly misinterpreted the instruction and here we are this evening with this result.

 

[GenericUsername202]

I know Will Ashcroft will be a gun one day, but today showed just how far off it he still is. When neale was tagged, it was his chance to stand up when we were being found out in the middle, yet he disappeared completely. I admire Fletcher though, because out of our young guns, he was the one who stood up the most today and i feel like the noise around Will and Levi drowns out just how good Fletcher is. He deserves just as much attention as they do, because i rate him just as good as the ashcroft boys, both on potential and how their year has gone. I also see him as the future captain of the club. He's someone who just never has a bad game. Even when we're down, he always shows up.

 

[Section 5]

I think blaming the sub selection as one reason for the loss is letting the team as a group off the hook.
If a KPF or defender or one of the 2 rucks went down people would not be complaining.
Personally, i would have had Lohmann as sub or played him in the VFL and play Gardiner forward.
Lohmann has only had 3 games all being subbed off with injury

We had enough premiership players on the field to beat a team that has won only 8 games the previous 3 years.
Until todays draw, they have only won once this year

We were not up for the fight against a bottom side.
It showed in the first quarter and never really went away.
Attitude is why we lost this game and why a few other games against lowly rated teams were close.
I get that teams have an off day (v Pies) but against North is a bit much.
The playing group should be hurting with that result.

Coming into the year the F/R position was an issue and with Day out, it is more so on today's performance.
May as well play Dunkley in the ruck with Hippy taking the inside 50 contests and Andrews or Payne taking the inside 50 defense ruck contests. This then gives Will/Bailey/Rayner more time on the ball.
Dunkley should not get to do many centre bounces. Does not need to contest just stay down and tackle if given the chance.
That will give us more run around the ground which we lacked today.

Still not convinced Gallop will be able to step up to AFL and do that role.
Maybe they give him a chance but i think later in the year would be better.

 

[pod17]

Today we probably needed to remind ourselves of Oscar’s selflessness comments from last year. It was frustrating to watch the forwards flat out torch each other all day instead of doing team first things.

We also lacked any defensive mindset at stoppage when they started to get on top. I thought when Dunkley was on the pine our beating around the ball intensified, which didn’t help with Berry gone as a bigger bodied defensive back up.

Overall, today reeked of complacency from both players and coaches alike (as the selection of Gardiner absolutely was adventurous at best). A good wake up call that in an even comp, if you’re off, you’ll be found out quickly.

 

[Darren Downunder]

I know I'm going to sound like a tool but this one keeps cropping up all the time . So I've decided to speak up in protection of the Australian vernaculars.

It's a wet wig not a wet week. Ever tried to throw a wet wig ?

As to the point you were making Irish I totally agree.

It’s a wet wick isn’t it? The wick burns slow ‘cause it’s wet.

 

[moncon]

Ha . Someone has to protect our colloquialisms.

Just doing my civil duty.

It's "civic" duty, isn't it?

 

[The Flying Belgian]

It's "civic" duty, isn't it?

Keep it Cyril civil, won't you?

 

[CarterS]

This team has given us a lot over the last few years and I'm not going to explode at one disappointing performance.

 

[Clarkythelion]

Don't panic - just look at the ladder, we are ok. The idea of the season is to make the finals and we are on track.

Some of us, in the discussions leading up to the game had thoughts we needed to play the 2 ruckman so they would be ready for the Melbourne and Hawthorne games. We were right they were not ready for that on the evidence we saw.

Against North that tactic didn't work, bot our ruckman are used to playing the 'main man' and in this game they seemed to be falling over each other, confused who was doing what and neither seemed to settle into their work for the day. Those issues just seemed to radiate out through the team, our mids were scrambling at times and as the game wore on more and more confusion occurred and we couldn't seem to fall into our system. Ty Gallop, we had suggested was the other option but then having him against Gawn next would be tossing him to the 'wolves' so to speak. We are all experts in retrospect, maybe Forte as the emergency and let Oscar run himself out then change over would have worked. However the two rucks are still the number 1 option against Melbourne if we can get it right pre-game how they function together. Maybe we try something a bit radical, say to Oscar that he 'tags' Gawn and follows him everywhere and comes on and off when he does then use Gallop. Hippy is the better option to help out but we need to have a solution for the rest of the season given Day's injury history and we don't want to rob 'Perter to pay Paul' with Hippy there.

Some tweaking in the ruck given we now have some base load data or a debut, that is all I see this week.

 

[MacMum]

I've always known it as a "wet week"

oh, and it's "civic duty"

..just my two bobs worth



..carry on discussing our miserable performance, you do it much better than me. I didn't enjoy the game at all. North are not as bad as we all think/thought.

 

[Bucking Beads]

We are playing so poorly at the moment. Big concerns for how Big O is getting obliterated at the moment. He is having a go but not winning much. Getting smashed out of the middle is less than ideal but it seems to be a common theme in 2025. Logan Morris got cooked by the umpires last night which was frustrating. I will take the 2 points and move on. Hopefully we see a bit of fire in the belly moving forward.

 

[M Malice]

I'm not concerned at all with how we are playing, top of the ladder while not playing our best is a positive sign, plenty of room for improvement.

Fagan said in his Presser(not verbatim)> it is a long arduous season and hard to stay up every week, the aim is to be playing your best football come September and that is what we are aiming to be doing, we had a lot of players coming of an injury interrupted off season which was very short. The home and away season is about banking wins to get to September.
____________________________________________________

Trust in Fagan, Daly, assistant coaches and medical/rehab staff.

 

[Sproj]

North were good and credit to them. They were up for it and we switched off once we were 20 up at half time. Our boys just thought we could go through the motions and walk it out. Unfortunately, that also combined with North kicking two early goals in the third and then getting every possible free and 50/50 call.

There were some absolutely gobsmacking umpiring decisions in that fourth quarter which really helped them and kept stopping us from being able to get upfield. Given just how one way the umpiring got, we did well to get a draw.

 

[LongLion]

He is not in the contest and bumps.

That's the way I saw it too.

 

[briztoon]

Wow, that was a very tough watch today, and a very disappointing effort considering that we could have won that match if some players had been a bit more sensible.

My votes went to Zorko, Dunkley, Answerth, McCluggage and Rayner. But I have to admit that outside Zorko and Dunkley, it was tough going.

I've got my own match report written up here if any interest.

Have to say I have some concerns about Logan Morris' form. He has not been great recently, and while he's grabbed a handful of goals here and there, he often goes missing for long parts of the game.

Morris is not a genuine tall forward. He’s the same height as Dunkley. So he’s a third tall, but copping the oppositions second best tall defender or a genuine third tall defender.

If Morris played against us, we’d be putting Lester or Gardiner on him, and he’d barely get a touch.

If we had a better tall forward set up, he’d probably be doing a bit better individually.

Realise he's still very young and inexperienced, but we desperately need a tall forward to put more pressure on defences. That said, he was unlucky not to be paid the mark at the end which was clear.

 

[Lion_LegacyXL]

We're top of the ladder so I'm happy about that but I'm keen to get back home against the Dees and hopefully put this game behind us.

 

[troppo]

Xerri is the form ruckman in the competition and I can understand the plan to bring in Fort to give Oscar some assistance, particularly with Gawn the opponent next week. It does show why the coach has been reluctant to play both in the same team. I would love to see Gallop come into the team next week but I am not keen to see him rucking against Gawn. I also wouldn’t risk Hippie at any centre bounces. Maybe Oscar could take all the centre bounces and then play a kick behind the play.

 

[Gadzorks]

Tasmania is a problem.

Forget this wear the singlet and tough it out crap.

Next tassie game issue long sleeve for everyone and get the points.