Saturday against St Kilda saw a handful of changes, both individual and positional, which suggest a different phase of North Melbourne’s season is about to begin.
Not only were there four changes to the starting 22…
In: Archer, Stephenson, Fisher, Shiels
Out: Nyuon, Lazzaro, Stephens, Phillips
…there were also changes in roles for a handful of others.
It’s what today’s post will focus on, along with an attempt to forecast what it may mean for the next few weeks up until the bye.
—–
While the North Melbourne match analyses are – and always will be – free for all, for those who want a little bit extra the Patreon continues to run. There are three tiers available in 2024:
$2.50 – Debutant – To show support for the site without receiving any extra features
$5 – Rising Star – The first level where there are extra features and early access for certain things
$10 – Brownlow – First access to everything and anything set up for Patrons
To find out more details and sign up, head here for the Patreon page.
—–
Defence
It was the first time this year North went with only two key defenders, Bigoa Nyuon omitted for Jackson Archer as the latter played his first game of the year.
Against a St Kilda side with all of Max King, Mitch Owens, Tim Membrey, and the second ruck (largely Jack Hayes but Rowan Marshall on occasion too), it was a brave decision but necessary.
Nyuon had been lost in space far too often across his three games and a net negative to the team defence. His role was played well by Kallan Dawson early in the season and when Dawson returns to full fitness he’ll likely slot straight back into the spot.
But Dawson’s ankle injury suffered on April 12 – and listed as 2-3 games away on April 16 – was still 2-3 games away as of April 30. It left North with a decision on Nyuon’s spot that almost made itself really; holding on for another fortnight at least would have been too risky and getting Archer’s defensive attributes into the unit provided a net positive overall.
That wasn’t the only notable change though, as two more meant a new-look North defence in many ways.
Bailey Scott returned to his best position on the wing and Harry Sheezel made the move to what’ll likely be the rotation where he spends the most time in his AFL career, rotating between the midfield and half forward.
Those two we’ll get to in other sections but in the meantime it meant plenty of responsibility on the section I’ve labelled ‘rebounders’ above.
In his post-match press conference Alastair Clarkson mentioned the need to ‘get our ball use and overlap a little bit bolder, perhaps’ which when put through a coach speak translator suggests it was already a focus leading into Saturday.
Although some of Zac Fisher’s excursions seemed specifically designed to raise the heart rate of North supporters watching on, setting off on those runs in the first place is half the battle.
A fortnight ago in the Hawthorn post I wrote on the importance of backing your role and those around you. Fisher did just that and although some didn’t work out, it’s about setting an example. McKercher’s runs were overall more successful than Fisher’s, but how many does the first-year player go on if he’s the only one doing it with no support?
Then the more it happens, the more everyone gets in sync with each other, and the more opposition defences are challenged.
The key for Fisher, McKercher, and whoever the third rebounder is – whether Hardeman gets a couple more games or it continues to rotate through a handful of others – is it enables the unit to carry someone like Archer who’s currently a non-factor offensively but arguably defends better than anyone else on the entire list.
And if the third rebounder turns into Dawson as a third key when he returns from injury, if Fisher and McKercher are playing well it again allows North to have more security against different forward types.
To sum the last 500 words up: If most of this defensive setup holds for the next few weeks, the form of Fisher and McKercher will likely define its relative success.
—–
For those who have missed previous match analyses, here are links to the last five weeks:
Back to front: Round 7 v Adelaide
Trust on a football field: Round 6 v Hawthorn
Minimising strengths, maximising weaknesses: Round 5 v Geelong
Midfield movement lessons: Round 4 v Brisbane
Going too quick: Round 3 v Carlton
—–
Midfield
The general setups around the midfield were covered in the Geelong game and although there’s been a little improvement at ground level, the aerial advantage hasn’t translated. To put another Clarkson post-match quote through the translator…
‘Big Xerri in the ruck went up against Marshall and won the hit outs convincingly, helped us with clearance, helped us with tackle pressure, and that sort of stuff but we just couldn’t capitalise … despite us winning the hit outs we couldn’t capitalise on that advantage.’
…it means the advantage couldn’t be capitalised on because of the whole unit not quite clicking yet. But without spilling another few hundred words on that and instead saving it for another time, today let’s focus on what the addition of Sheezel and Scott meant.
With Sheezel’s introduction as a mid-forward (or forward-mid if we’re splitting hairs, either can be correct), it was noticeable how he and Simpkin more or less split time in the same rotation. Although centre bounce attendances aren’t a perfect illustration of midfield combinations, they’re the best we’ve got publicly available for those – me – who manually track. This is how it looked against the Saints:
We can see Sheezel and Simpkin didn’t share a single centre bounce. Powell also spent some time at half forward although it was significantly less than the other two Roos, not impacting their roles.
Creating an extra viable midfield rotation this way should only help in the long run. Over the last year and a bit I’ve mentioned on various podcasts and in these posts* how I think Sheezel’s long-term role at AFL level is as a mid-forward rotation.
Really it was only his immediate proficiency at half back that held the move back this long. Barring injury I’d expect to see him continue in this role for at least the next month or two.
(*If someone knows how to set up a site index to track these things like you see in the back of a book, please let me know)
What that means is realigning the expectations for Sheezel. He’s not going to effortlessly tally 30 disposals a week in this role and we saw him fade out just a little bit in the second half on Saturday with different responsibilities in this area of the field.
It’ll likely take an adjustment period, pivoting away from having the whole game in front of him. But it’s a vote of confidence in those rebounding defenders mentioned earlier to take the load as Sheezel starts to get reps further up the field.
Elsewhere it was Scott who instantly looked much more comfortable on the wing. Although I was convinced it’d be Darcy Tucker whose spot was under threat to allow Dylan Stephens’ kicking to continue to feature (if he was ever used in chains anyway), what I missed was the value of Tucker’s flexibility in this team.
Stephens is a pure winger, while Tucker can move around if needed. A little bit at half forward to plug a gap, the same at half back if needed – and that’s what he did more often as the game continued and there were attempts – fruitless attempts but attempts nonetheless – at finding ways to stop St Kilda taking uncontested marks for fun.
It’ll be intriguing to see what happens on that wing over the next month or so. It’s hard to imagine Scott shifting again, which leaves Stephens fighting to seemingly take Tucker’s spot by banging down the door at VFL level.
Is that the smallest of small selection pressure for spots starting to be created?
Forward
This section is much smaller than the other two lines. The main change here came as a domino effect from the midfield; Sheezel’s addition and Shiels’ inclusion basically removing a forward rotation from the team.
For all the changes across the field though, the same problems in keeping it trapped inside the forward half still remain. It was covered at length – at long length – in last week’s post so we won’t go over it again in the same level of detail.
But in short, St Kilda had 23 rebound 50s turn into 14 inside 50s of their own: a conversion rate of 60.9 percent. League average is about 25 percent.
Last week’s post covered how there was largely two reasons for it – initial positioning and/or failure to continue defending in the second phase of the chain.
Against the Saints it was almost exclusively the latter of those two reasons, St Kilda able to move the ball at will out of dangerous areas while North players couldn’t defend for long enough.
With next week’s game in Darwin usually bringing conditions akin to a wet weather contest and making ball movement trickier, it should – should – make it a little easier for North to defend in their front half. Perhaps they’re famous last words.