What a tricky game to analyse.
There were bright spots, there were sore spots, and a slightly different midfield formation to what we’d seen throughout pre-season.
All of it should be tailored to the fact North Melbourne played arguably the best team in the competition at this early stage of the season. It means those sore spots are arguably highlighted more often than they’d be against lesser opposition, but also raises the question of how much those areas need to improve.
Because if GWS continue on their current path, picking up where they left off in the back half of 2023, only the smallest group of teams will get close to them.
So while North may need to improve four or five levels to get close to the Giants, how many levels get them to a respectable output? There could be a significant difference between the two.
That question will remain unanswered for a little while longer. Until then, let’s dig into Saturday at Giants Stadium. Or whatever it’s called today.
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Let’s start with the on-ball rotations. I’ve spilled plenty of words on it over the pre-season, but it deserves extra focus here.
In the games against Collingwood and St Kilda there were a few different looks, but a combination of that data and Jy Simpkin’s concussion led to a surprisingly (for me, anyway) streamlined unit on Saturday.
For the first two and a half quarters, it was purely a four-man rotation: Luke Davies-Uniacke, Tom Powell, George Wardlaw, and Charlie Lazzaro. In part because it was such a low-stoppage game we didn’t see too much of a half forward and half back coming up to contests – there was so much speed on the game it was impossible to execute properly.
Then for the back half of the third quarter Cam Zurhaar became the fifth rotation and responded with 10 disposals and three inside 50s for the term. Paul Curtis had a couple of token minutes as well, but nothing of note to delve too deeply into.
Combine it all and we’re left with this in terms of centre bounce combinations. It’s not a perfect match but this basically doubles as the midfield rotations and preferred usage:
The initial passages from all combinations were relatively promising, but where it started getting dicey – and this is a theme I’ll return to a few times – is the second phase where play spilled into space.
A lot of it is based on positioning and understanding each other. The Giants have that innate understanding across teammates and lines: a mix of experience, repetition, and instinct.
Take this as an example. This is almost literally a split-second decision made after the ball spills from the centre bounce. But the top teams do it repeatedly, time and time again. When North get there, whenever that may be, they don’t get scored against in this situation:
Now consider this: How many teams have the equivalent of Stephen Coniglio dispossessing Davies-Uniacke, Tom Green making an instantly correct positioning decision, and Josh Kelly holding his space to keep Powell in two minds about where to go? Most teams don’t punish North’s midfielders so ruthlessly in the exact same situation.
Whether these rotations hold once Simpkin returns to action is the million-dollar question, but only time will tell. In the meantime, the question is how long North go with this exact look of four midfielders plus Zurhaar when needed, and little else in the way of forward-mid shuffling.
This current setup makes it a little easier for Will Phillips to make his way back in if needed because it eliminates any worry about forcing him to half forward for spells. Then it basically becomes a comparison of his strengths and weaknesses v Lazzaro’s strengths and weaknesses (or Powell’s if he drops off) and which one benefits the team more from week to week.
I’d be surprised if any midfield change comes immediately though. It wouldn’t send the greatest message to reward players for a strong pre-season to then turn around and immediately punt them after one game against strong opposition.
Besides, the more urgent area of focus is figuring out a way to stop the Sherrin pinballing out of the forward half at a rate of knots. This is where we take a detour into stats for the next few paragraphs.
In 2023, when a team rebounded out of their defensive 50 with possession, they got to their attacking 50 roughly 23 percent of the time.
On Saturday, GWS’ number was 56.7 percent.
In 2023, when a team rebounded out of their defensive 50 with possession, they scored at the other end roughly 10 percent of the time.
On Saturday, GWS’ number was 33.3 percent.
Here’s how it looks in table form:
| AFL rebound 50 to inside 50 % in 2023 | GWS on Saturday | AFL rebound 50 to scoring shot % in 2023 | GWS on Saturday |
| 23.2% | 56.7% | 9.8% | 33.3% |
Not great Bob!
It probably ruins my point slightly that the first example I’m about to show starts just outside the 50, but the choice of camera angles on the day have me working with one arm tied behind my back.
Anyway, this is the clearest illustration I can provide of a system breakdown. There are always going to be individual errors with things like players ball watching or over committing to a particular play.
But for a team in North’s position – and for this area of the game – it’s probably best to focus on system first before starting to worry about individuals.
Here, the first layer breaks down. Then the second layer is nearly non-existent. By the time it gets to the inside 50 kick, there are so many GWS options it’s almost not fair to the defence as they scramble to put out spot fires.
Although the defence wasn’t blameless for the entire afternoon, in situations like this it nearly doesn’t matter who’s back there. It happened time and time again.
Once GWS got into space it was lights out. And, again, it’s important to remember this type of ball movement cut up the reigning premiers last week. It’s not as if this happening to North is a unique occurrence. If the 2023 version of Fremantle did it, then it’d be panic stations. Although, speaking of Fremantle … we’ll cross that bridge next week.
It’s a shame the backs were left hung out to dry so often, because of the group Kallan Dawson was a standout when not cast into impossible situations.
The closing speed is more than useful defensively, and he demonstrated an impressive read of when to try and help offensively. He had arguably the best play of North’s day here, starting as the goalkeeper before coming up at the right time to impact and nailing the inside 50 kick.
Although there’s still plenty to work on, it’s super promising to see Dawson continue on his pre-season form and put a lock on a second/third key defender role for the next little bit. It’s one less worry as the defensive personnel will likely continue to chop and change around him.
Particularly coming off the back of Josh Goater’s ruptured Achilles, ending his season before it really began. It’s always a lottery how a season ending injury affects a player’s career but given Goater’s physical attributes it has the potential to strip him of that real top end ability we’ve seen flashes of.
In the interim the cover is simple, with Luke McDonald the obvious replacement – perhaps a week or two earlier than planned, but still valuable to get a little more experience for the medium and small types.
But instead of ending on a sour note, let’s finish on a positive, albeit slightly (okay, *extremely*, whatever) tenuous omen: the last two times North has played a Western Australian team at Marvel, they’ve walked away with a win. Next up is Fremantle on Saturday afternoon.