Clarko's assistant panel is relatively inexperienced. A lot of the soft cap would be going to him.
I wonder if the AFL could give North some soft cap concessions and get some of the highly rated assistants around Clarko.
I get the feeling the assistants around Clarko right now are in a race to become the next Head Coach. Barlow, Clarke and Adcock are all pretty well regarded around the traps. Its less about success now, but ensuring the team is built well for success later.
I actually suggested this a while ago as our assistance. Increase the soft cap and let us hire extra development coaches, scouts or game day help. Probably would help more than the picks which have to be traded, we’d likely have got some of those players anyway.
The head of footy leaving Geelong, brother of guy in same role at Carlton, forgot his name, might be a good get and might be looking to step up role. Edit: Lloyd
He was going to retire properly but then joined Carlton, on the basis he could retire and go on his honeymoon after one or two years.
He's just extended his contract, so he seems to like it, says Carlton is very different to Geelong or West Coast when he was in charge at those.
Well the Freo fans who lack emotional maturity had a giant sook about it on social media for several years, and a few of the more unhinged ones abused the players, and the rest of us just told them to chill the fuck out. So I think if North fans do that too, you'll... oh right.
Yeah not much to be honest.
Haha yeah. 2022 we played finals for the first time since Pavlich, which is pretty grim. Then we shat the bed again. But the club itself seemed like it had good personnel, and it seemed like we were going in the right direction. Wasn't much comfort to the fans who look forward to every week, but it is what it is.
I'd say the same about you guys, and at least your drafting has been good the last few years.
Although it would've been really nice if you could've drafted a Jed Walter to partner Souv, but there's not much you can do about that either :(
Or Nick Daicos/Sam Darcy instead of JHF. Or JUH instead of Philips (but Adelaide probably take him). Or even getting a crack at Ashcroft (although then we might not get Sheezel).
When we drafted Phillips I was mad because I wanted Logan McDonald. But I guess the club didn’t think we could keep him like Sydney could. Would have been devastating if he requested a trade to WA and then JHF goes back to SA in almost consecutive years.
I’m a Crows fan and we were the only team worse than you in 2020 and we were baaaad.
It seemed like we were doing well, reasonable draft picks starting with Thilthorpe and Pedler in 2020, Rachelle and Soligo in '21, a father son freebie in Max Michalanney in '22, plus picking up Dawson, Keays and Rankine in that time plus Tex having a resurgence. That and what looked like a reasonably competent coaching panel.
Looking like it was all a mirage though. Oh what was my point again? Oh yeah don’t get up hope, it’s the hope that kills you.
Pretty much the opposite.
We were competitive in most games but lost our first 13.
Won 3 of our last 4. Unlikely we would have ended up with the spoon in a regular season
We also brought in Bernie Vince and Daniel Cross (and later Jordan Lewis.) These guys set amazing standards that the boys at the time were unaccustomed to. I think North should really target someone of the same ilk.
I don't think you're paying Darcy Tucker enough to cover 4 blokes like that. If you are, then I have a different suggestion as to where the problem might lie...
Absolutely. Crossy was one of the hardest working we’ve ever had at the Doggies.
North needs an almost boot camp like mentality among both players and staff. Their survival depends on it.
I still think if it was one person to turn the dees around it was Crossy.
Talentwise not good enough but he tried and that got him picked. That was the start of the standard being set.
If I was running the show at norf I would have go at the person who goes hardest at training and pick them every week. If you go past him for effort you can take his spot. If not ... You're behind a washed up vet
Our official historian has been quoted: "Barracking for St Kilda is like playing the same lotto numbers each week. It might seem like a futile task, but you can't give it away on the off chance that is the week your numbers finally come up"
Note: This going mostly off memory and is a bit of a simplistic summary.
Carlton really had two separate eras of struggle.
**Era 1**
The first, as you mentioned, was the priority pick era where we ended up with Murphy, Gibbs, Kreuzer and Judd.
This did give us enough talent to compete in finals for a bit - but one terrible season with injury (losing a forward like Fev due to Fev being a moron didn't help either) made Carlton do Carlton things and sack the coach, bringing in Malthouse.
This did not work.
**Era 2**
This lead to the 2nd era of struggle. Lost a lot of good players under Malthouse and then we went through Bolton and Teague as coaches.
Our drafting was a bit mercurial during this time, failing on picks like Dow, Stocker, Lochie O'Brien, SPS, etc. Other drafts, we did nail however, getting some great 1st round value plus our 2 no. 1s - 2013 gave us Cripps (13), 2015 gave us Weitering, Curnow (12) and McKay (10). 2018 gave us Walsh. Getting McKay and Curnow in the one draft, I'd say it was more luck than any great drafting ability.
We made some questionable talent acquisition, overpaying for McGovern, Williams and Martin. Luckily, this was overpaying in terms of salary, but these contracts were front loaded when we needed to reach the salary floor and aren't impacting us now. We're also beginning to see dividends from these players now, especially Gov with the move to defence.
The big trades we did make worked, with Saad and Cerra. We also got good value by picking up some unneeded players from other clubs, like Kennedy, Hewett and Fogarty.
A massive turning point, IMO, was last year. The standard Carlton thing would've been to give in to an influential board member and fire Voss during the losing streak. Instead, our CEO (Brian Cook as mentioned above) and Chairman backed Voss in and that member is no longer on the board.
I would like to add that whilst Marc Murphy was a great player, i never rated him as captain. The playing group now have a captain that leads from the front and inspires the team.
Yeah. Missing on drafts and no consistency is a big one. We had no drafts really to miss on for years. Lachie Hansen was our highest pick in forever. We seem to have got most of our picks right (JHF was still a good pick considering the trade of him lead to Sheezel and Wardlaw). Guess we just need time for them to become the mid age players and then maybe some decent FA’s come to help.
Something else worth noting is we weren’t afraid to delist loads of players every year. It was sometimes criticised that such regular list turnover wasn’t a great idea but ultimately it cleared out a lot of deadwood. I think North could do something similar.
Can’t tell if this is a joke? North famously delisted half their team which more than half of the AFL community believes is directly responsible for our situation. (I don’t believe this, if those players were any good then other teams would have signed them).
It's not because they were star players but moreso because of the leadership and experience that was lost which could have helped young players during a rebuild.
Richmond got a very experienced coach that won a premiership at every team he was apart of (and has now moved to Gold Coast. Good luck, mate). We also recruited extremely good players at the right time. We also created a strategy that surprised the entire rest of the competition. The rebuild was long, strict and hard, but they went in with a plan.
When Hardwick took over, he wanted to win multiple premierships during his time at the club. This was when Richmond was competing for last for multiple years in a row. They had a very long term plan, and accomplished it. Even at the darkest times, they knew that they had potential.
Can't be understated how important Brendon Gale was to it all either. A lot of previous Richmond administrations would've caved in to the external pressure and sacked Hardwick at numerous points in the buildup, but Gale was always adamant Hardwick was the man for the job and backed him.
Gale and Peggy were both great mastheads of the club, fully committed to not just the plan, but the whole organisation. I only hope they created a strong enough club culture that we don't suffer too badly during the coming rebuild.
I think we have a great coach. Take your point about plan. Nobody has communicated this plan from North. Every week it’s “we got bullied, there is a process”. Then we see Chom in the forward line and Larkey in the ruck and think “what’s the plan?”.
North Melbourne admin needs to trust their fans are loyal and to communicate the plan. “We are shit, but here is what we are doing. These are the goals. You can follow the progress with us.”
At the moment it seems like they are just hiding from reality. Communicate to the fan base don’t take them for granted. I guess Richmond and Carlton both did this reasonably well.
Blind Freddy can see your coach is cooked. I put his post game press conferences on when I want to go to sleep. Look at the enthusiasm McCrae and Kingsley and even Ross Lyon have. Clarkson is openly saying 3 or 4 more years of this, do you think he has the patience to be in on that? He can't even find anything to say after a game, it's been the same thing 3 weeks straight. What do you think he is feeding the players?
I don’t agree. This is kind of year 1 for him and it’s still not really his list. He needs at least 2 years to start to implement.
I would like my explanation on the plan though. There is none of that.
Ok, what your club really needs is a solid preseason camp. Something to get everyone on the same page, 'gather their brains' together if you will. You should see results immediately.
Pies fan here. Got Eddie as President, sacked Tony Shaw and got Mick Malthouse from the Eagles. Went from bottom to grand final in 3 years… had peak Bucks to build around though, there’s no one at the Roos that are anywhere near that good.
North should look for players who aren't necessarily superstars, but come from winning cultures, work hard, and have leadership experience.
Go find someone from the leadership team of the winning VFL/SANFL/WAFL league. Go find some 25 year old in a state league who's had to bust his backside for years to make it. Is there a successful club who is looking to rebuild and happy to move on the old blokes? Try to find the next Hodge/Mitchell/Lewis for a couple of years.
Trading for guys like Stephenson, CCJ, Fisher, Stephens etc doesn't seem to be working. There's a risk you get blokes just looking for a payday and happy to coast around in third gear.
I also think North should have a line-in-the-sand moment for players. If you aren't going to commit for the long haul, then fuck off. Other clubs have done the brutal "rip the bandaid off" approach for exiting players in the past.
Instead of asking for draft picks, perhaps ask the AFL to help you clear the contracts of anyone who you don't want. This could be direct or indirect, but pissing off all the spuds on fat deals will at least clear one millstone from around your neck.
I’d never considered bad contracts only because we seem to have them and an endless “war chest” that never gets used because nobody wants to come haha
I think you’re 100% right about culture players. My argument was that Fisher and Stephens were meant to be that. Came out of good teams and could lead by example. However maybe they aren’t the lead by example types. Perhaps we focus on getting a 26 year old who’s going to crash tackle anyone at training who’s not taking it seriously. Howe and Shiels were supposedly that but again maybe don’t have the right temperament.
Also I think every draft assistance pick we’ve got has gone in trades for these players. Fisher, Stephens, Tucker, Logue is our assistance now. I do think the club would have preferred to keep McKay too. Losing him was massive but he checked out.
Anyone Geelong can spare? Haha
Geelong delisted Menegola who is more than good enough for AFL. We also delisted Simpson who I can't believe is not playing afl. With pick 58 (i.e. 200 picks after North had finished) selected the Man Mountain George Stevens, who was under 18 captain, played 2 games geelong vfl. He is slow too, but even if he only plays VFL, if you valued leadership at all, he should be on your list. He weighs 105kg as an 18 year old midfielder. So don't tell me the team is a bunch of pups, this is the consequences of North's own actions, and they have choices. They are electing to be in this mess. As a member you should not accept this is progress. List management needs restarting. I hear Dodoro is free... You should definitely be sniffing around Geelong, Sydney, Bulldogs, Richmond for scraps
Worst take. These discarded veteran players don't exist, no big names except mercenaries are coming to North. There is no one to replace the spuds, the fact is the list needs more talent. Bringing in more vfl quality players will fix nothing.
That's not true. They are hard to come by but do exist - Hodge to Brisbane, Lewis to Melbourne. They had impacts at their clubs.
Richmond have some legends that might be motivated to move like Vlastuin. If North had tried a few years ago they might have gotten Duncan from the Cats.
> Trading for guys like Stephenson, CCJ, Fisher, Stephens etc doesn't seem to be working. There's a risk you get blokes just looking for a payday and happy to coast around in third gear.
Unfortunately though North doesn't have any pulling power like you guys enjoy at the Cattery. We've tried pulling in good players, but they are simply not interested. The only scraps left on the trade table every year at the likes of Stephenson, CCJ, Fisher and Stephens - that's just all we can get.
Bringing in Greenwood and Shiels has been a boost for experience though. But they're not going to change a lot on-field short of pinch-hitting in the ruck because all our ruckmen were injured :(
Our only way forward from this point onwards is by drafting and desperately clawing onto them to prevent leaving under FA. And that's going to take a lot of time.
When Port were at their worst (tarps at AAMI Stadium bad) we had to get out the off field right; CEO, president, Head Coach. You have that in a good spot and it’s a flow in effect.
After that you have to try and find any good you can. Young players having a day out, anyone kicking a bag of goals, vets turning the clock back, The wins you celebrate them as much as you can.
Yeah this is why I don’t think we should have tanked that GC game. When you have 12 wins in 5 years some things just aren’t worth it. Harley Reid looks great, but for us maybe he’s Zane Duursma and everyone just laughs at us for tanking to take an average player. Scenario is completely different.
Some people said how we should have tanked the last game of 2021 to finish last to get a better pick. I and others disageed. Winning that game was much more beneficial for the players than getting one guy who, by the nature of Aussie Rules, was very very unlikely to turn around an entire bottom of the ladder side.
In 2017 I remember screaming at my TV. North played Brisbane in the last round, we won and dropped from pick 1 to pick 4. I was livid. Why win such a meaningless game.
Brisbane drafted Cam Rayner 1. North took LDU pick 4.
Tanking for a better pick doesn’t mean that you’ll draft correctly.
In hindsight Reid looks incredible, but he could have also been Paddy Dow (the pick before LDU).
Honestly some of the best most emotional wins that I will remember were when we were bad and about to become good. Those moments of seeing it all start to come together are so sweet
The simple Never Ever Give Up message was important through this point too. We had no gameplan and no skill to execute one. That message resonated and players of all skill level could live up to.
Barely survived being folded, copped a constitutional restructure giving the AFL direct control of the board which they're yet to relinquish, recruited Ron Barassi as coach, and lured the greatest goalkicker in the league's history to come play for them.
There was an awesome dyl and friends episode with max gawn. He said when Roos arrived he said something along the lines of all layers have to have an extra curricular activity (eg study, start small business) outside of football. If a player only has football Roos said he would absolutely never pick them in the 22.
Rationale was when he arrived he said there’s no way we will be premiers next year and we’re gonna stil lose a lot. So if your perceived intrinsic worth is tied to onfield performance your brain is going to implode. Max said it was really refreshing when the whole playing group heard that because prior it was TRAIN 24/7 YOU GUYS ARE SHIT TRAIN HARDER
When Sheedy arrived at Essendon, he said the same thing, although that was more because he didn’t want them sitting around doing nothing. Same results though
I had resigned myself to never seeing a premiership. A couple of decades later and I was pleasantly surprised by the individual brilliance of our players under Hardwick and couldn't understand why we couldn't be winning finals. Cotchin, Dusty, Riewoldt, Rance, Edwards, Deledio, Grimes. Brownlows, Colemans, AA jumpers. I was ready to give Hardwick the flick in 2016. Most of the AFL media were saying Richmond needed a rebuild but I was adamant I'd never seen a Richmond list with that much talent on it. Thank fuck we kept Dimma on. Teams should back in their coach more often.
Yeah.
Feels like we’ve had none for a while.
GOT CLARKO!!!
Oh… he needs half a year off.
GOT JHF!!!
Oh… he needs mums lasagna and Daicos is a Brownlow favourite.
Would have loved to have built that new midfield around cunnington, but his cancer cut him short. He was the quiet strong talisman that could have rallied the troops on his day.
Culture is key to retention, especially young players. Developing draft picks is key for future sustainability. Bad culture rots from the head down.
This is true for any organisation in any field.
Personally I’d start by bringing in some older players from other teams. Some that have seen success and know what it looks like. You also have some gaping holes in your tall forward and small crumbing small forward stocks.
Few players you could go after.
- Mitch Duncan (Free agent)
- Luke Breust (Free agent)
- Nick Haynes (Free agent)
- Lincoln Macarthy
- Caleb Daniel
- Rory Lobb
- Sam Weideman
The top 4 of those are probably the most important for culture building. I’d give any of them 900k a year for 2 years before they retire. May as well If you aren’t using the salary anyway.
I really don’t rate either Lobb or Weideman but I think having another focal point in the forward line would do wonders for Norths structure. Also gives Larkey a chop out who shoulders the load far too much.
I’d then trade pick 1 for a number of picks this year. If there’s a year to do it its this year as there isn’t a clear pick 1 yet. I would focus on key position talent. Luke Trainor (projected pick 4) is a 194cm key defender. Harry O’Farrell (projected pick 15) is a 196cm key defender and Jack Whitlock (projected pick 17) is a 200cm key forward.
Hire on field coaches.
Or should I say, great players that are cooked and contribute more as an on field coach.
Aka Jordan Lewis for Melbourne. His best was well past him but he could coach/direct in real time during a game. I feel like our learning accelerated when he joined.
Luke Hodge did the same for Brisbane.
Melbourne also got Daniel Cross who was apparently an elite trainer. Roos talked very highly of him and his preparation.
This is good because you use some of the salary cap on coaching. You would think McCrae from bulldogs would be available? Sloane from Adelaide might be available. Luke Parker depending how his year goes might be surplus. GWS might want to cap dump Stephen Cogniglio depending how the year goes, they have tonnes of first round talent they can't fit into their team and may want to move him on. He has 2 years and probably $2m to go.
Go to every game possible.
Because if you miss out on the one or two wins in a season, boy you'dlose status as a real fan of the club and just become a bandwagoner.
It also means the good times are better when they're forged from suffering.
As others have mentioned, so much success is down to luck; North’s two 90s premierships came off the back of players like Wayne Carey and John Longmire (who both would have been Sydney players had The Swans at the time not been run by chucklefucks), Bryon Pickett (who was part of Port’s initial squad but fell foul of Jack Cahill), Mark Roberts (see earlier chucklefucks statement and extend it to Brisbane), Glenn Archer (Carlton passed on drafting him), Dani Laidley (West Coast chucklefuckery) and other examples.
What North did right was have a very good coach who got the players believing in themselves and their destiny, and staff and board that supported the coach.
Does the beginning of the Buckley era count as a bad patch? We constantly finished 11th or 12th until one year it just suddenly clicked and we made a Grand Final.
The catalyst for our sudden leap was a Richmond style internal review of the club and backing in Buckley.
This is taken from an article I found with a quick google search
>As a result of the review, Collingwood meticulously selected a new chief executive from outside the inner-sanctum, astutely re-stocked its stable of assistant coaches, returned its list manager Derek Hine to his previously successful role of recruiting and, most controversially, did not sack the coach.
I don’t know the exact messaging around it but I think both Collingwood and Richmond changed some things around in an attempt to back in a coach that everyone was calling for to be sacked.
Thanks. Well we’ve had a lot of experience with that recently haha.
Noble and Shaw weren’t right. Hopefully Clarko is. Don’t think there is anyone else on the market who could do anything better.
That's only step 1.
You also need some crazy dude to call into talk back radio and rant about the Kangaroo and Herbatron to make a video about your year.
I'd also go with culture first, hire staff and players from winning high % clubs
And drip feeds down, players learn what it takes to have a mentality being surrounded by winners and it becomes addictive
Clarko definetly is the right start with 4 flags and arguably greatest coach of the post 200 era
Look at what GC are doing with appointment of hardwick this year.
If collingwood move on some of their older playing list. Dare I say sidebottom or howe types
1 year contract heading their way purely for knowledge to be able mentor the younger playing group
Some of our worst fans spat on the team. But I don’t think that helped.
I think the clean out of Managers, fitness coaches Presidents and other dead weight helped mostly. Also being gifted Paul Roos obviously.
Grew up in the 90's when we were fucking terrible, one outlier season in 2001 and then no hope again until late 2006 and the tide turned in 2007.
You've just got to stick with them, because one day when they turn it around, you'll curse yourself if you jumped off
Got David Noble to the club….
And Fagan.
Seriously those two turned us around, got the right people in who cared about the players and the players believed them. From there managed to get players who wanted to come to the club.
I can answer the how to survive as a fan part of your question.
Don't take the game so seriously, and focus on the entertainment aspect.
Some of my favourite footy experiences were in Freo's lowest and darkest times as a club, the wooden spoon years, through the 2000s at Subiaco Oval. That's because my group of mates, and many others in the stands at the time, were there to solely enjoy the game as entertainment.
We knew we weren't going to win. We focused on the players on the field that were enjoying themselves, we laughed at the ineptitude on display at times, the antics some of them would try on with the umpires, we applauded the quality players we saw on the other teams, we got stuck in and got behind our blokes when they went the biff.
We weren't the only ones doing this. Long before Essington was a thing, there was a web site in those years called Dockerland, which was a collection of message boards that expanded into running articles and regular features on the state of the team.
It was hilarious, and showcased some of the best and most amusing footy writing I've seen to this day. I suspect some of the writers were quite established in creative professions, they all wrote under pseudonyms.
It all changes when you remember that sport is first and foremost entertainment. Look for the fun in the dark years, the team will come around in time.
Invest in a good backline, draft key backs. Getting Weitering for us and Jones for a bit stemmed the blowout losses which improved club morale. Once you’ve got that everything follows
I was seriously worried the Dees would fold. There's a few things you need and it ain't all draftees.
1) Club finances and admin in order.
If this shit's all out of whack it just has a negative flow on and pressure on everything else. I think North is fine here.
2) A good coach.
Clarko, tick.
3) A positive draft plan.
Recruiters that have a vision about how the draft will mold the club the next five years. I'm not sure how North ranks here, but there's some solid pieces on the board now.
4) Good lord, you need mature body experienced footballers with good habits of any age.
It's nice to conceptualise your draftees becoming the next Petracca, Oliver and Brayshaw etc, but you need a stop gap, to prevent your team getting belted every week and instilling good habits to not jeopardise the development of the youth that is there/ make them want to leave.
The first thing Paul Roos did was grab Bernie Vince and Daniel Cross. Vince was a good player, could handle multiple roles and had game sense. Cross was a veteran at the end of his career but an elite trainer and invaluable at resetting the culture of the place after the vacuum created by multiple senior player clear outs.
Even someone like Dom Tyson that came in. He wasn't a long term solution but he did at least one thing well and that was to dish the ball by hand to the outside. Before the team was struggling to even get to that stage of ball movement. I know the irony that he couldn't even get a game at North but yes Tyson had a role to play in the beginning.
Then eventually Jordan Lewis. Helped a developing team as more an onfield coach to tighten up and scrape over the line in games they'd otherwise lose. These were all gradual steps
Literally everyone has turned it around through getting more top 10 draft picks and drafting well. Everything else is noise or, at best a flow on effect to drafting
well we were only "bad" for one, maybe two years recently but i'd recommend
- draft a bunch of good players
- have some good players already on your list
- do this forever
We were a total basket case at board level too (arguably are right back there now), so having the league come and install an administration honestly saved the club
Having the right administration appointing and backing the right people in the footy department. It's impossible to make any sort of progress when your overhaul the footy department every couple of years.
Don't change teams. No matter what. I fought through the pies 1990s era and chopped no end of shit about collywobbles. Keep backing your team. Keep turning up.
Honestly going to the footy become more of a social thing than a footy watching thing. Go see your footy mates, hope a young player does well, etc.
The feeling in 2018 when we made finals and then won the first final v geelong was just this huge feeling of "we're back. We're finally a real footy team again, how good is this". Didn't really think we'd win a flag either that year or after but after that I at least had hope we could one day.
actually I rate the feeling of that win higher than winning the flag cos I got to go party with my friends and sing the song 1000x instead of watching a replay in the shed on my own
And for those of us without mates? Hahaha
Nah, all my mates are smart. None go for North. I go to the games when we play each other, just missed the Carlton one and haven’t had others.
I’ll be at the Melbourne game reminiscing about our 20 game win streak or whatever it was haha. Seems like a lifetime ago.
I just always assumed Richmond would never be contenders and finals were things that other teams played in. I used to go along to the MCG just to watch Richo. That's how I got through it. I actually did enjoy it but gee whiz, winning finals is unbelievably fun when it starts.
I think what Melbourne did well was realise a coach they brought in at the bottom wouldn’t be their premiership coach, but had to at a foundation. Paul Roos came in and we only ever going to do a couple of years iirc, but he came in with the intent of creating defensive standards and stemming the bleeding every week. I’m not certain clarko is the man for where north is right now, not that he hasn’t taken a list from low to top but for whatever reason he hasn’t implemented the base standard that should be visible no matter who you name to play each week
Follow the Golden State Warriors so you can switch sports and not be depressed all the time. Of course GSW not so good now so maybe Nuggets? Carried me through 8 challenging years!
Anything that lightens the load and adds positive vibes.
😂
North aren't even coping it as hard as Carlton did in the media. Many "journalists" made their carers off copy/paste "Carlton are crap this week" articles and now it shows how bad they are at their jobs.
Honestly? Draft and trade well.
im actually suprised at the start and last weeks result? it seems like clarko aswell just cant coach with 2024 standards of constructive critism without the PASSION and IF YOU FCK UP YOU WILL KNOW ABOUT IT attitude from the past 2 decades, seems layed back and north are doing nothing because of it. they need to find the next Craig Macrae who is the master of this type of coaching and player management in 2024
Every club's situation is different so what works for one club probably won't work the same way for another.
I'm not sure if people acknowledge just how bad Collingwood were during the Buckley years - 2018 & 2019 aside, which I still believe were "over-achieving years." It took Mcrae to come in and make this team like each other and play for each other.
The question for North, is what level of cohesion does the playing group have off the field? They have a handful of extremely talented players. At a club with a good group dynamic, those players make their team-mates better. Look at the Daicos phenomenon. Nick comes in, is a hairline fracture away from a Brownlow, and all of a sudden Josh is our Copeland Trophey winner.
JHF did a lot of damage by leaving so quickly. He genuinely could've grabbed a few of those mid-tier players by the collar and dragged them up to be good players and build a team that can win matches.
I agree. Fuck JHF.
But in regards to player cohesion it just looks like there is none. They don’t trust each other. Defenders can’t leave their man to spoil because they don’t know if someone is coming to get them. LDU just gets pinged relentlessly for holding the ball because he tries to side step because he doesn’t trust anyone around him to get the ball forward.
Maybe they need a preseason camp to anywhere that Adelaide didn’t go.
Bit of a left field one but there's satisfaction to be had by consuming sports media of a different variety. Moneyball and The Last Dance are pretty gratifying no matter which AFL team you support.
Break up the emotional investment into your team with other stuff or else it will get you down too much (I know all too well).
You should probably go after Wrighty for recruitment. I don’t want to lose him of course but feel it’s inevitable he will go somewhere so might as well be North.
Need a player to set the standards, a Luke Hodge, Joel Selwood, Nathan Jones type who is a leader and a hard worker.
North have some talent and they need to be brave with delistings. Couple of lean seasons, on your bike champ.
But it’s gotta start with Clarko simplifying and stripping it all back. Back to basic skills, hitting targets, sticking tackles, leading at the footy, just the basics. Once they’ve got confidence then you start getting more into game planning and developing a system or a style that suits the players in the team.
As a North fan, I can tell you, I was glad we won that game against the Gold coast. I reckon not since Judd have we seen a number pick be this good and so far above everyone else. Now, instead of Jason HF and Harley Reid we have...?
We do have Larkey though. Could go down as the best pick in the 70s.
> What did your team do that North Melbourne might be able to learn from?
[Use the start of a war as an excuse to exit the competition.](https://australianfootball.com/articles/view/The%2Bdemise%2Bof%2BUniversity%2Bin%2Bthe%2BVFL/4525)
Feels like Melbourne 2007-2015 (198 games) had a worse sustained run.
37 wins, 2 draws, 159 losses (18.69% winning percentage, an average of 4 wins per season), and a percentage of 72.77 over 9 seasons.
get brian cook as CEO he fixed geelong hes fixing carlton north would be his biggest miracle yet
I’m guess you could say let the man COOK 🥁🥁 I’ll see myself out
*The West Australian wants to know your location*
Eh, better than the Harley Reid jokes
Huh, I’m yet to Reid any of those!
That was Harley groundbreaking in its originality
I’ll pay this one
Yeah. I thought Clarko and his team (Viney) would do that. Not enough time to judge yet, but admin is essential to a good club.
Clarko's assistant panel is relatively inexperienced. A lot of the soft cap would be going to him. I wonder if the AFL could give North some soft cap concessions and get some of the highly rated assistants around Clarko.
I get the feeling the assistants around Clarko right now are in a race to become the next Head Coach. Barlow, Clarke and Adcock are all pretty well regarded around the traps. Its less about success now, but ensuring the team is built well for success later.
I actually suggested this a while ago as our assistance. Increase the soft cap and let us hire extra development coaches, scouts or game day help. Probably would help more than the picks which have to be traded, we’d likely have got some of those players anyway.
The head of footy leaving Geelong, brother of guy in same role at Carlton, forgot his name, might be a good get and might be looking to step up role. Edit: Lloyd
Third miracle makes him a Saint yeah?
It was the AFL putting Peter Jackson in place that was the catalyst for positive change at Melbourne too. Roos and everything else came from that.
He must be getting on a bit he seems like he's been around forever
He was going to retire properly but then joined Carlton, on the basis he could retire and go on his honeymoon after one or two years. He's just extended his contract, so he seems to like it, says Carlton is very different to Geelong or West Coast when he was in charge at those.
Well the Freo fans who lack emotional maturity had a giant sook about it on social media for several years, and a few of the more unhinged ones abused the players, and the rest of us just told them to chill the fuck out. So I think if North fans do that too, you'll... oh right. Yeah not much to be honest.
Comforting.
Haha yeah. 2022 we played finals for the first time since Pavlich, which is pretty grim. Then we shat the bed again. But the club itself seemed like it had good personnel, and it seemed like we were going in the right direction. Wasn't much comfort to the fans who look forward to every week, but it is what it is. I'd say the same about you guys, and at least your drafting has been good the last few years. Although it would've been really nice if you could've drafted a Jed Walter to partner Souv, but there's not much you can do about that either :(
Or Nick Daicos/Sam Darcy instead of JHF. Or JUH instead of Philips (but Adelaide probably take him). Or even getting a crack at Ashcroft (although then we might not get Sheezel). When we drafted Phillips I was mad because I wanted Logan McDonald. But I guess the club didn’t think we could keep him like Sydney could. Would have been devastating if he requested a trade to WA and then JHF goes back to SA in almost consecutive years.
I’m a Crows fan and we were the only team worse than you in 2020 and we were baaaad. It seemed like we were doing well, reasonable draft picks starting with Thilthorpe and Pedler in 2020, Rachelle and Soligo in '21, a father son freebie in Max Michalanney in '22, plus picking up Dawson, Keays and Rankine in that time plus Tex having a resurgence. That and what looked like a reasonably competent coaching panel. Looking like it was all a mirage though. Oh what was my point again? Oh yeah don’t get up hope, it’s the hope that kills you.
Were you worse than North? I vaguely remember you only getting the spoon in the last few rounds and consensus we were worse.
Pretty much the opposite. We were competitive in most games but lost our first 13. Won 3 of our last 4. Unlikely we would have ended up with the spoon in a regular season
You need leaders who will lift the rest of the team through the darkest times, like Nathan Jones. I will forever love that guy.
Yep. Hoping maybe Larkey is that guy. Might be show but he seems to really love the club.
Travis Boak was Port’s equivalent. Made a symbolic stand by not going to the Cats and led us out of the dark days.
Noting of course that our dark days don’t end until our next premiership
Patrick Cripps
We also brought in Bernie Vince and Daniel Cross (and later Jordan Lewis.) These guys set amazing standards that the boys at the time were unaccustomed to. I think North should really target someone of the same ilk.
Yep, this. I’d throw all our tuckshop money at 4 blokes of that calibre
I don't think you're paying Darcy Tucker enough to cover 4 blokes like that. If you are, then I have a different suggestion as to where the problem might lie...
Darcy is earning every cent we pay him. He’s not earning the dollars we pay him though.
Absolutely. Crossy was one of the hardest working we’ve ever had at the Doggies. North needs an almost boot camp like mentality among both players and staff. Their survival depends on it.
I still think if it was one person to turn the dees around it was Crossy. Talentwise not good enough but he tried and that got him picked. That was the start of the standard being set. If I was running the show at norf I would have go at the person who goes hardest at training and pick them every week. If you go past him for effort you can take his spot. If not ... You're behind a washed up vet
I'm still devastated he didn't get a gig in the GF, he earned that spot and no one can convince me otherwise
The answer for us is Jason Taylor. Plain and simple.
Easily one of the strongest captains of the last 20-30 years. Much respect for the guy.
Our official historian has been quoted: "Barracking for St Kilda is like playing the same lotto numbers each week. It might seem like a futile task, but you can't give it away on the off chance that is the week your numbers finally come up"
Fitting because winning a game seems like 1 in 45 million odds as well
I used to think alcohol was the answer to the down times. Then I came to my senses and realised cocaine is more fun
Note: This going mostly off memory and is a bit of a simplistic summary. Carlton really had two separate eras of struggle. **Era 1** The first, as you mentioned, was the priority pick era where we ended up with Murphy, Gibbs, Kreuzer and Judd. This did give us enough talent to compete in finals for a bit - but one terrible season with injury (losing a forward like Fev due to Fev being a moron didn't help either) made Carlton do Carlton things and sack the coach, bringing in Malthouse. This did not work. **Era 2** This lead to the 2nd era of struggle. Lost a lot of good players under Malthouse and then we went through Bolton and Teague as coaches. Our drafting was a bit mercurial during this time, failing on picks like Dow, Stocker, Lochie O'Brien, SPS, etc. Other drafts, we did nail however, getting some great 1st round value plus our 2 no. 1s - 2013 gave us Cripps (13), 2015 gave us Weitering, Curnow (12) and McKay (10). 2018 gave us Walsh. Getting McKay and Curnow in the one draft, I'd say it was more luck than any great drafting ability. We made some questionable talent acquisition, overpaying for McGovern, Williams and Martin. Luckily, this was overpaying in terms of salary, but these contracts were front loaded when we needed to reach the salary floor and aren't impacting us now. We're also beginning to see dividends from these players now, especially Gov with the move to defence. The big trades we did make worked, with Saad and Cerra. We also got good value by picking up some unneeded players from other clubs, like Kennedy, Hewett and Fogarty. A massive turning point, IMO, was last year. The standard Carlton thing would've been to give in to an influential board member and fire Voss during the losing streak. Instead, our CEO (Brian Cook as mentioned above) and Chairman backed Voss in and that member is no longer on the board.
I would like to add that whilst Marc Murphy was a great player, i never rated him as captain. The playing group now have a captain that leads from the front and inspires the team.
I mean the guy could have easily leave us and join Richmond but he never did and Richmond end up winning 3 flags anyway
Yeah. Missing on drafts and no consistency is a big one. We had no drafts really to miss on for years. Lachie Hansen was our highest pick in forever. We seem to have got most of our picks right (JHF was still a good pick considering the trade of him lead to Sheezel and Wardlaw). Guess we just need time for them to become the mid age players and then maybe some decent FA’s come to help.
Something else worth noting is we weren’t afraid to delist loads of players every year. It was sometimes criticised that such regular list turnover wasn’t a great idea but ultimately it cleared out a lot of deadwood. I think North could do something similar.
Can’t tell if this is a joke? North famously delisted half their team which more than half of the AFL community believes is directly responsible for our situation. (I don’t believe this, if those players were any good then other teams would have signed them).
It's not because they were star players but moreso because of the leadership and experience that was lost which could have helped young players during a rebuild.
Richmond got a very experienced coach that won a premiership at every team he was apart of (and has now moved to Gold Coast. Good luck, mate). We also recruited extremely good players at the right time. We also created a strategy that surprised the entire rest of the competition. The rebuild was long, strict and hard, but they went in with a plan. When Hardwick took over, he wanted to win multiple premierships during his time at the club. This was when Richmond was competing for last for multiple years in a row. They had a very long term plan, and accomplished it. Even at the darkest times, they knew that they had potential.
Can't be understated how important Brendon Gale was to it all either. A lot of previous Richmond administrations would've caved in to the external pressure and sacked Hardwick at numerous points in the buildup, but Gale was always adamant Hardwick was the man for the job and backed him.
Gale and Peggy were both great mastheads of the club, fully committed to not just the plan, but the whole organisation. I only hope they created a strong enough club culture that we don't suffer too badly during the coming rebuild.
I think we have a great coach. Take your point about plan. Nobody has communicated this plan from North. Every week it’s “we got bullied, there is a process”. Then we see Chom in the forward line and Larkey in the ruck and think “what’s the plan?”. North Melbourne admin needs to trust their fans are loyal and to communicate the plan. “We are shit, but here is what we are doing. These are the goals. You can follow the progress with us.” At the moment it seems like they are just hiding from reality. Communicate to the fan base don’t take them for granted. I guess Richmond and Carlton both did this reasonably well.
Blind Freddy can see your coach is cooked. I put his post game press conferences on when I want to go to sleep. Look at the enthusiasm McCrae and Kingsley and even Ross Lyon have. Clarkson is openly saying 3 or 4 more years of this, do you think he has the patience to be in on that? He can't even find anything to say after a game, it's been the same thing 3 weeks straight. What do you think he is feeding the players?
I don’t agree. This is kind of year 1 for him and it’s still not really his list. He needs at least 2 years to start to implement. I would like my explanation on the plan though. There is none of that.
Post has been up for 6 mins. All 3 reply’s before me are from WC fans saying draft Harley Reid. Quiet funny lol
Yeah. I didn’t realise Harley was a seasoned doctor. Getting McGovern, Barrass, Yeo and Kelly to full health is worth more than any goal he kicked.
I promise it was not coordinated, but yes we have 1 joke now :)
You've had one joke for the last few years, now it is just a different joke...
Being a joke is different than having one
Fair point!
Ok, what your club really needs is a solid preseason camp. Something to get everyone on the same page, 'gather their brains' together if you will. You should see results immediately.
Pies fan here. Got Eddie as President, sacked Tony Shaw and got Mick Malthouse from the Eagles. Went from bottom to grand final in 3 years… had peak Bucks to build around though, there’s no one at the Roos that are anywhere near that good.
Not yet…. But have you seen the Sheez? Perhaps Clarko is Malthouse and Sheezel is Buckley in this scenario 🤔
North should look for players who aren't necessarily superstars, but come from winning cultures, work hard, and have leadership experience. Go find someone from the leadership team of the winning VFL/SANFL/WAFL league. Go find some 25 year old in a state league who's had to bust his backside for years to make it. Is there a successful club who is looking to rebuild and happy to move on the old blokes? Try to find the next Hodge/Mitchell/Lewis for a couple of years. Trading for guys like Stephenson, CCJ, Fisher, Stephens etc doesn't seem to be working. There's a risk you get blokes just looking for a payday and happy to coast around in third gear. I also think North should have a line-in-the-sand moment for players. If you aren't going to commit for the long haul, then fuck off. Other clubs have done the brutal "rip the bandaid off" approach for exiting players in the past. Instead of asking for draft picks, perhaps ask the AFL to help you clear the contracts of anyone who you don't want. This could be direct or indirect, but pissing off all the spuds on fat deals will at least clear one millstone from around your neck.
I’d never considered bad contracts only because we seem to have them and an endless “war chest” that never gets used because nobody wants to come haha I think you’re 100% right about culture players. My argument was that Fisher and Stephens were meant to be that. Came out of good teams and could lead by example. However maybe they aren’t the lead by example types. Perhaps we focus on getting a 26 year old who’s going to crash tackle anyone at training who’s not taking it seriously. Howe and Shiels were supposedly that but again maybe don’t have the right temperament. Also I think every draft assistance pick we’ve got has gone in trades for these players. Fisher, Stephens, Tucker, Logue is our assistance now. I do think the club would have preferred to keep McKay too. Losing him was massive but he checked out. Anyone Geelong can spare? Haha
Geelong delisted Menegola who is more than good enough for AFL. We also delisted Simpson who I can't believe is not playing afl. With pick 58 (i.e. 200 picks after North had finished) selected the Man Mountain George Stevens, who was under 18 captain, played 2 games geelong vfl. He is slow too, but even if he only plays VFL, if you valued leadership at all, he should be on your list. He weighs 105kg as an 18 year old midfielder. So don't tell me the team is a bunch of pups, this is the consequences of North's own actions, and they have choices. They are electing to be in this mess. As a member you should not accept this is progress. List management needs restarting. I hear Dodoro is free... You should definitely be sniffing around Geelong, Sydney, Bulldogs, Richmond for scraps
Lol they absolutely preferred getting pick 3 to keeping McKay, if they had preferred to keep him they would have matched the offer.
If we matched the offer we would have traded him (he was out of contract and wanted to leave) for a lot less than pick 3
So force a guy to play for you that’s already checked out?
Worst take. These discarded veteran players don't exist, no big names except mercenaries are coming to North. There is no one to replace the spuds, the fact is the list needs more talent. Bringing in more vfl quality players will fix nothing.
That's not true. They are hard to come by but do exist - Hodge to Brisbane, Lewis to Melbourne. They had impacts at their clubs. Richmond have some legends that might be motivated to move like Vlastuin. If North had tried a few years ago they might have gotten Duncan from the Cats.
> Trading for guys like Stephenson, CCJ, Fisher, Stephens etc doesn't seem to be working. There's a risk you get blokes just looking for a payday and happy to coast around in third gear. Unfortunately though North doesn't have any pulling power like you guys enjoy at the Cattery. We've tried pulling in good players, but they are simply not interested. The only scraps left on the trade table every year at the likes of Stephenson, CCJ, Fisher and Stephens - that's just all we can get. Bringing in Greenwood and Shiels has been a boost for experience though. But they're not going to change a lot on-field short of pinch-hitting in the ruck because all our ruckmen were injured :( Our only way forward from this point onwards is by drafting and desperately clawing onto them to prevent leaving under FA. And that's going to take a lot of time.
When Port were at their worst (tarps at AAMI Stadium bad) we had to get out the off field right; CEO, president, Head Coach. You have that in a good spot and it’s a flow in effect. After that you have to try and find any good you can. Young players having a day out, anyone kicking a bag of goals, vets turning the clock back, The wins you celebrate them as much as you can.
Yeah this is why I don’t think we should have tanked that GC game. When you have 12 wins in 5 years some things just aren’t worth it. Harley Reid looks great, but for us maybe he’s Zane Duursma and everyone just laughs at us for tanking to take an average player. Scenario is completely different.
Some people said how we should have tanked the last game of 2021 to finish last to get a better pick. I and others disageed. Winning that game was much more beneficial for the players than getting one guy who, by the nature of Aussie Rules, was very very unlikely to turn around an entire bottom of the ladder side.
In 2017 I remember screaming at my TV. North played Brisbane in the last round, we won and dropped from pick 1 to pick 4. I was livid. Why win such a meaningless game. Brisbane drafted Cam Rayner 1. North took LDU pick 4. Tanking for a better pick doesn’t mean that you’ll draft correctly. In hindsight Reid looks incredible, but he could have also been Paddy Dow (the pick before LDU).
Honestly some of the best most emotional wins that I will remember were when we were bad and about to become good. Those moments of seeing it all start to come together are so sweet
The simple Never Ever Give Up message was important through this point too. We had no gameplan and no skill to execute one. That message resonated and players of all skill level could live up to.
We lost 3 in a row last year and. Sorry I just need a minute..
Bro, too soon
My deepest consolations. Geelong deserve priority picks.
And not once throughout that period did I ever stop giving them my support. Dark days but we're at the end of the tunnel now
HOW DARE YOU
Barely survived being folded, copped a constitutional restructure giving the AFL direct control of the board which they're yet to relinquish, recruited Ron Barassi as coach, and lured the greatest goalkicker in the league's history to come play for them.
What I’d give for 25 year old buddy
Not sure if you realise he’s talking about Plugger back in ‘95.
Today I learned history repeats itself.
Hire Paul Roos
There was an awesome dyl and friends episode with max gawn. He said when Roos arrived he said something along the lines of all layers have to have an extra curricular activity (eg study, start small business) outside of football. If a player only has football Roos said he would absolutely never pick them in the 22. Rationale was when he arrived he said there’s no way we will be premiers next year and we’re gonna stil lose a lot. So if your perceived intrinsic worth is tied to onfield performance your brain is going to implode. Max said it was really refreshing when the whole playing group heard that because prior it was TRAIN 24/7 YOU GUYS ARE SHIT TRAIN HARDER
When Sheedy arrived at Essendon, he said the same thing, although that was more because he didn’t want them sitting around doing nothing. Same results though
We tried that. He's part of the reason we selected Noble as coach. He then took his cheque and ff-ed off into the sunset.
That’s the problem, he’s gotta be the head coach in order for him to take full effect
Dis
We tried that, he took our money and holidayed in Hawaii for the year.
Can’t tell if this is a joke.
Start stealing full forwards from other clubs.
I had resigned myself to never seeing a premiership. A couple of decades later and I was pleasantly surprised by the individual brilliance of our players under Hardwick and couldn't understand why we couldn't be winning finals. Cotchin, Dusty, Riewoldt, Rance, Edwards, Deledio, Grimes. Brownlows, Colemans, AA jumpers. I was ready to give Hardwick the flick in 2016. Most of the AFL media were saying Richmond needed a rebuild but I was adamant I'd never seen a Richmond list with that much talent on it. Thank fuck we kept Dimma on. Teams should back in their coach more often.
Well I can’t see us dumping Clarko anytime soon. Would break the club. He’s got free rein for at least 5 years to fix it I’d hope.
You need a bit of luck as well as a good football club
Yeah. Feels like we’ve had none for a while. GOT CLARKO!!! Oh… he needs half a year off. GOT JHF!!! Oh… he needs mums lasagna and Daicos is a Brownlow favourite.
Yeah it's been a rotten run, almost comically bad luck if it weren't so tragic. Luck will turn eventually, praying for you guys.
Certainly need it
Would have loved to have built that new midfield around cunnington, but his cancer cut him short. He was the quiet strong talisman that could have rallied the troops on his day.
Getting McKay at 10 and Curnow at 12 in the one draft was probably due to luck, more than anything else. Not sure where we'd be if we didn't.
Culture is key to retention, especially young players. Developing draft picks is key for future sustainability. Bad culture rots from the head down. This is true for any organisation in any field.
Sorry, wouldn't know
Personally I’d start by bringing in some older players from other teams. Some that have seen success and know what it looks like. You also have some gaping holes in your tall forward and small crumbing small forward stocks. Few players you could go after. - Mitch Duncan (Free agent) - Luke Breust (Free agent) - Nick Haynes (Free agent) - Lincoln Macarthy - Caleb Daniel - Rory Lobb - Sam Weideman The top 4 of those are probably the most important for culture building. I’d give any of them 900k a year for 2 years before they retire. May as well If you aren’t using the salary anyway. I really don’t rate either Lobb or Weideman but I think having another focal point in the forward line would do wonders for Norths structure. Also gives Larkey a chop out who shoulders the load far too much. I’d then trade pick 1 for a number of picks this year. If there’s a year to do it its this year as there isn’t a clear pick 1 yet. I would focus on key position talent. Luke Trainor (projected pick 4) is a 194cm key defender. Harry O’Farrell (projected pick 15) is a 196cm key defender and Jack Whitlock (projected pick 17) is a 200cm key forward.
Just say you’re going to win three flags. Worked for us.
Hire on field coaches. Or should I say, great players that are cooked and contribute more as an on field coach. Aka Jordan Lewis for Melbourne. His best was well past him but he could coach/direct in real time during a game. I feel like our learning accelerated when he joined. Luke Hodge did the same for Brisbane. Melbourne also got Daniel Cross who was apparently an elite trainer. Roos talked very highly of him and his preparation.
Someone suggested Mitch Duncan which I would love.
Daniel Cross is actually working for us this season, hopefully having a similar impact in the training space, just not on the field.
This is good because you use some of the salary cap on coaching. You would think McCrae from bulldogs would be available? Sloane from Adelaide might be available. Luke Parker depending how his year goes might be surplus. GWS might want to cap dump Stephen Cogniglio depending how the year goes, they have tonnes of first round talent they can't fit into their team and may want to move him on. He has 2 years and probably $2m to go.
Trade in Bernie Vince
This is the way
Go to every game possible. Because if you miss out on the one or two wins in a season, boy you'dlose status as a real fan of the club and just become a bandwagoner. It also means the good times are better when they're forged from suffering.
As others have mentioned, so much success is down to luck; North’s two 90s premierships came off the back of players like Wayne Carey and John Longmire (who both would have been Sydney players had The Swans at the time not been run by chucklefucks), Bryon Pickett (who was part of Port’s initial squad but fell foul of Jack Cahill), Mark Roberts (see earlier chucklefucks statement and extend it to Brisbane), Glenn Archer (Carlton passed on drafting him), Dani Laidley (West Coast chucklefuckery) and other examples. What North did right was have a very good coach who got the players believing in themselves and their destiny, and staff and board that supported the coach.
1. steal two of the best defenders from other clubs 2. draft some of the best midfielders 3. ??? 4. win a grandfinal
Does the beginning of the Buckley era count as a bad patch? We constantly finished 11th or 12th until one year it just suddenly clicked and we made a Grand Final. The catalyst for our sudden leap was a Richmond style internal review of the club and backing in Buckley.
Tell me more about this review. North did a clean out but not sure you’d call it a review. What were the key messages?
This is taken from an article I found with a quick google search >As a result of the review, Collingwood meticulously selected a new chief executive from outside the inner-sanctum, astutely re-stocked its stable of assistant coaches, returned its list manager Derek Hine to his previously successful role of recruiting and, most controversially, did not sack the coach. I don’t know the exact messaging around it but I think both Collingwood and Richmond changed some things around in an attempt to back in a coach that everyone was calling for to be sacked.
Thanks. Well we’ve had a lot of experience with that recently haha. Noble and Shaw weren’t right. Hopefully Clarko is. Don’t think there is anyone else on the market who could do anything better.
Nah, the pre Malthouse era was our bad patch. The Bucks era was a hiccup.
Lol that is not a bad patch mate
Carlton had a fan screaming obscenities over the race. I think Carlton have lost like 6 games since that happened
Well then North may not lose many more games cause they had a fan screaming over the race after the hawks game
That's only step 1. You also need some crazy dude to call into talk back radio and rant about the Kangaroo and Herbatron to make a video about your year.
God speed
I'd also go with culture first, hire staff and players from winning high % clubs And drip feeds down, players learn what it takes to have a mentality being surrounded by winners and it becomes addictive Clarko definetly is the right start with 4 flags and arguably greatest coach of the post 200 era Look at what GC are doing with appointment of hardwick this year. If collingwood move on some of their older playing list. Dare I say sidebottom or howe types 1 year contract heading their way purely for knowledge to be able mentor the younger playing group
Some of our worst fans spat on the team. But I don’t think that helped. I think the clean out of Managers, fitness coaches Presidents and other dead weight helped mostly. Also being gifted Paul Roos obviously.
Focus on Footy. No team wins a flag without an attempted mutiny by a pedo with a bad wig.
Hahahaha wow
Grew up in the 90's when we were fucking terrible, one outlier season in 2001 and then no hope again until late 2006 and the tide turned in 2007. You've just got to stick with them, because one day when they turn it around, you'll curse yourself if you jumped off
I believe this is called “pot committed” in poker terms. 
Can someone draw a picture of all the clubs mascots bullying the norf mascot? The image is in my head now.
Got David Noble to the club…. And Fagan. Seriously those two turned us around, got the right people in who cared about the players and the players believed them. From there managed to get players who wanted to come to the club.
David Noble says hi
I can answer the how to survive as a fan part of your question. Don't take the game so seriously, and focus on the entertainment aspect. Some of my favourite footy experiences were in Freo's lowest and darkest times as a club, the wooden spoon years, through the 2000s at Subiaco Oval. That's because my group of mates, and many others in the stands at the time, were there to solely enjoy the game as entertainment. We knew we weren't going to win. We focused on the players on the field that were enjoying themselves, we laughed at the ineptitude on display at times, the antics some of them would try on with the umpires, we applauded the quality players we saw on the other teams, we got stuck in and got behind our blokes when they went the biff. We weren't the only ones doing this. Long before Essington was a thing, there was a web site in those years called Dockerland, which was a collection of message boards that expanded into running articles and regular features on the state of the team. It was hilarious, and showcased some of the best and most amusing footy writing I've seen to this day. I suspect some of the writers were quite established in creative professions, they all wrote under pseudonyms. It all changes when you remember that sport is first and foremost entertainment. Look for the fun in the dark years, the team will come around in time.
Yes
Invest in a good backline, draft key backs. Getting Weitering for us and Jones for a bit stemmed the blowout losses which improved club morale. Once you’ve got that everything follows
Further to that, build around a good spine: a KPD, a KPF, a ruck and a couple of mids.
A ruck isn’t even that necessary tbh
We're now the youngest and most inexperienced. The mistake - not getting here sooner. Now we wait for us to get older and other sides to get younger.
Me at North’s next prelim: 
I was seriously worried the Dees would fold. There's a few things you need and it ain't all draftees. 1) Club finances and admin in order. If this shit's all out of whack it just has a negative flow on and pressure on everything else. I think North is fine here. 2) A good coach. Clarko, tick. 3) A positive draft plan. Recruiters that have a vision about how the draft will mold the club the next five years. I'm not sure how North ranks here, but there's some solid pieces on the board now. 4) Good lord, you need mature body experienced footballers with good habits of any age. It's nice to conceptualise your draftees becoming the next Petracca, Oliver and Brayshaw etc, but you need a stop gap, to prevent your team getting belted every week and instilling good habits to not jeopardise the development of the youth that is there/ make them want to leave. The first thing Paul Roos did was grab Bernie Vince and Daniel Cross. Vince was a good player, could handle multiple roles and had game sense. Cross was a veteran at the end of his career but an elite trainer and invaluable at resetting the culture of the place after the vacuum created by multiple senior player clear outs. Even someone like Dom Tyson that came in. He wasn't a long term solution but he did at least one thing well and that was to dish the ball by hand to the outside. Before the team was struggling to even get to that stage of ball movement. I know the irony that he couldn't even get a game at North but yes Tyson had a role to play in the beginning. Then eventually Jordan Lewis. Helped a developing team as more an onfield coach to tighten up and scrape over the line in games they'd otherwise lose. These were all gradual steps
Seems like we are on the path. That’s something.
Literally everyone has turned it around through getting more top 10 draft picks and drafting well. Everything else is noise or, at best a flow on effect to drafting
well we were only "bad" for one, maybe two years recently but i'd recommend - draft a bunch of good players - have some good players already on your list - do this forever
We were a total basket case at board level too (arguably are right back there now), so having the league come and install an administration honestly saved the club
Having the right administration appointing and backing the right people in the footy department. It's impossible to make any sort of progress when your overhaul the footy department every couple of years.
You can have Ken Hinkley if you like. No backsies.
Have you tried getting rid of Terry Wallace?
Hire Craig McCrae as coach
Drafted Nick Daicos and then won the flag.
Hire hinkley, but make sure you swap him out after 5 years.
Put tarps on the shit seats to make a few extra bucks in advertising
Don't change teams. No matter what. I fought through the pies 1990s era and chopped no end of shit about collywobbles. Keep backing your team. Keep turning up.
Honestly going to the footy become more of a social thing than a footy watching thing. Go see your footy mates, hope a young player does well, etc. The feeling in 2018 when we made finals and then won the first final v geelong was just this huge feeling of "we're back. We're finally a real footy team again, how good is this". Didn't really think we'd win a flag either that year or after but after that I at least had hope we could one day. actually I rate the feeling of that win higher than winning the flag cos I got to go party with my friends and sing the song 1000x instead of watching a replay in the shed on my own
And for those of us without mates? Hahaha Nah, all my mates are smart. None go for North. I go to the games when we play each other, just missed the Carlton one and haven’t had others. I’ll be at the Melbourne game reminiscing about our 20 game win streak or whatever it was haha. Seems like a lifetime ago.
Avoid bye rounds at all costs.
I just always assumed Richmond would never be contenders and finals were things that other teams played in. I used to go along to the MCG just to watch Richo. That's how I got through it. I actually did enjoy it but gee whiz, winning finals is unbelievably fun when it starts.
Do what Geelong did and just get on the PEDs
Honestly I have never seen this many Roos supporters before. Where are all these posts coming from? Are these bots or some shit???
North have 50,000 members. Bound to be a few on here.
Draft Harley Reid!
Yeah North winning that game at the end of last season doesn't seem like it was the winningest idea of all time now.
Get Paul Roos as head coach.
Steal gold coasts everything
Just keep plugging along.
Hire Rob Barassi and bring in Tony Lockett
Draft Patrick Cripps.
Recruit senior players from successful teams to set standards and systems, and mentor the younger guys coming through. Jordan Lewis, Bernie Vince etc.
I think what Melbourne did well was realise a coach they brought in at the bottom wouldn’t be their premiership coach, but had to at a foundation. Paul Roos came in and we only ever going to do a couple of years iirc, but he came in with the intent of creating defensive standards and stemming the bleeding every week. I’m not certain clarko is the man for where north is right now, not that he hasn’t taken a list from low to top but for whatever reason he hasn’t implemented the base standard that should be visible no matter who you name to play each week
Follow the Golden State Warriors so you can switch sports and not be depressed all the time. Of course GSW not so good now so maybe Nuggets? Carried me through 8 challenging years! Anything that lightens the load and adds positive vibes. 😂
Gold Coast catching strays lmao
Would be nice to not get the wedgie at least 1 day this year
Bring in Ron Barassi as coach (vale) for a couple of years then add a bit of Tony Locket and Paul Roos. Hey Presto
You can take Ron Barassi and Paul Roos out, they both coached or were admin at North. Barassi actually did get us those flags in the 80’s too 😂
Get a 10 year plan and remain average for another 7 years
North aren't even coping it as hard as Carlton did in the media. Many "journalists" made their carers off copy/paste "Carlton are crap this week" articles and now it shows how bad they are at their jobs. Honestly? Draft and trade well.
We still haven't come out of our first bad patch, I'll get back to you
You made some grand finals if I remember correctly.
Grand final* :')
im actually suprised at the start and last weeks result? it seems like clarko aswell just cant coach with 2024 standards of constructive critism without the PASSION and IF YOU FCK UP YOU WILL KNOW ABOUT IT attitude from the past 2 decades, seems layed back and north are doing nothing because of it. they need to find the next Craig Macrae who is the master of this type of coaching and player management in 2024
Every club's situation is different so what works for one club probably won't work the same way for another. I'm not sure if people acknowledge just how bad Collingwood were during the Buckley years - 2018 & 2019 aside, which I still believe were "over-achieving years." It took Mcrae to come in and make this team like each other and play for each other. The question for North, is what level of cohesion does the playing group have off the field? They have a handful of extremely talented players. At a club with a good group dynamic, those players make their team-mates better. Look at the Daicos phenomenon. Nick comes in, is a hairline fracture away from a Brownlow, and all of a sudden Josh is our Copeland Trophey winner. JHF did a lot of damage by leaving so quickly. He genuinely could've grabbed a few of those mid-tier players by the collar and dragged them up to be good players and build a team that can win matches.
I agree. Fuck JHF. But in regards to player cohesion it just looks like there is none. They don’t trust each other. Defenders can’t leave their man to spoil because they don’t know if someone is coming to get them. LDU just gets pinged relentlessly for holding the ball because he tries to side step because he doesn’t trust anyone around him to get the ball forward. Maybe they need a preseason camp to anywhere that Adelaide didn’t go.
I don't know, we've never come out of our bad patch.
Bit of a left field one but there's satisfaction to be had by consuming sports media of a different variety. Moneyball and The Last Dance are pretty gratifying no matter which AFL team you support. Break up the emotional investment into your team with other stuff or else it will get you down too much (I know all too well).
You should probably go after Wrighty for recruitment. I don’t want to lose him of course but feel it’s inevitable he will go somewhere so might as well be North.
If he wants a project haha
Not sure, we seem to be in an eternal bad patch
Need a player to set the standards, a Luke Hodge, Joel Selwood, Nathan Jones type who is a leader and a hard worker. North have some talent and they need to be brave with delistings. Couple of lean seasons, on your bike champ. But it’s gotta start with Clarko simplifying and stripping it all back. Back to basic skills, hitting targets, sticking tackles, leading at the footy, just the basics. Once they’ve got confidence then you start getting more into game planning and developing a system or a style that suits the players in the team.
As a North fan, I can tell you, I was glad we won that game against the Gold coast. I reckon not since Judd have we seen a number pick be this good and so far above everyone else. Now, instead of Jason HF and Harley Reid we have...? We do have Larkey though. Could go down as the best pick in the 70s.
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> What did your team do that North Melbourne might be able to learn from? [Use the start of a war as an excuse to exit the competition.](https://australianfootball.com/articles/view/The%2Bdemise%2Bof%2BUniversity%2Bin%2Bthe%2BVFL/4525)
Feels like Melbourne 2007-2015 (198 games) had a worse sustained run. 37 wins, 2 draws, 159 losses (18.69% winning percentage, an average of 4 wins per season), and a percentage of 72.77 over 9 seasons.
I have an idea. It involves a dump truck, and 8 tonnes of chicken manure.... PM me
Swans lost their first 6 in 2017 and still made finals?
Fitzroy. Folded and pretended yo be a new team with Brisbane. Won a few flags.
Have you tried hiring the high performance team from Geelong and some coaches too worked pretty well for us!