A tough night in Darwin, North Melbourne succumbing to a ninth successive loss to start 2024.
With the game more or less what was expected coming in, there weren’t a huge amount of standout topics to discuss.
So the call went out to Twitter, or whatever the platform is called today, for suggestions. What ensued was many more responses than I’d anticipated.
Because of that, today’s post is half mailbag format, half game talk.
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$2.50 – Debutant – To show support for the site without receiving any extra features
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@brettski71: Mate I keep reading that LDU isn’t trying. But my eyes tell me he is, his disposal was way down tonight and he has seemed so far less ‘explosive’ when he gets the ball this year. I would love to know whether there are specific aspects of his game that have dropped off.
On paper, the stats look great. 35 disposals (17 contested possessions), 584 metres gained, 9 clearances, and 5 inside 50s. But the disposal at times was off and there were a couple of moments where the head noticeably dropped.
It’s important to note the only time I’ll be mildly critical of Davies-Uniacke is because I see a player who could – should – have an A or A+ ceiling, instead of the A- he’s currently at (all grading subjective, of course). Dermott Brereton more or less said the same on commentary as well.
These words aren’t coming from the angle of ‘he’s been poor’. It’s from the viewpoint of watching a player who can be great, rather than merely very good.
But we can all see it’s been a slight drop off this year from last. I put it down to three reasons:
a) The departure of Todd Goldstein. Not that Goldstein is purely responsible for it, but it’s not a coincidence Essendon’s midfield has sharply improved since his arrival.
b) Purely from an on-field perspective: the departure of Tarryn Thomas. The absence of another explosive midfielder allows opponents to sit on Davies-Uniacke more for the time being.
c) The trickiest one to measure from the outside: a change in midfield coach. Setups are different, which means different responsibilities, of which Davies-Uniacke shoulders plenty as the number one man.
How much weight is placed in each is probably a matter of opinion. But the care factor is there, the errors are clearly felt – otherwise the head wouldn’t drop – and he’s always working, it just manifests externally in different ways.
Some players make an error and want to make up for it by driving the closest opponent six feet under. Example: George Wardlaw. Others need to process it a little and get in their head at times, which is the category I believe Davies-Uniacke falls into. Daniel Wells was a little the same as well.
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For those who have missed previous match analyses, here are links to the last five weeks:
Positional changes: Round 8 v St Kilda
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
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@frankip: How it’s impossible to take anything from games played in these conditions
Although Saturday night was far from a clash of league powerhouses, if that general style of play is what we’d have to watch more often than not from a 20th team’s home games, count me out.
@mikeistheworst: What and how it happens that (seemingly) every week North go from looking like they’ll be competitive, or may even win, at midway through the first quarter, to getting absolutely smoked the rest of the game.
@whatshisdan28: When is age no longer an excuse
I think these two items are linked in a way.
Every week there’s been a good – okay, maybe ‘decent’ – patch of football that won’t last for too long. I put it down to two things:
1) It’s physically unsustainable for any team to play their best for an extended length of time. Currently North have a lower ceiling than others, which means a shorter fall to an area where they’re second best.
2) Because it’s a younger team, it also has a lower floor. Low ceiling + low floor = the worst points of this season.
To illustrate, this is how this year’s minutes have been divided by age through nine rounds:
A painfully inexperienced team like this is naturally going to have times every week where things look like they’re falling away. That won’t change for quite a while barring a radical list transformation.
Although age is always going to be a reason/excuse for some things, the key is making sure the mindset is strong enough to stay battling through those tough times – regardless of who’s on the field – and finding a way to unlock an extra physical level to mitigate other deficiencies.
For example, watch Bailey Scott’s efforts without the ball, particularly in the last quarter. When so many other players on both teams had nothing left to give, Scott was still ever-present. A handful of players are gradually getting to his level and when that makes up the majority of a team, good things will happen.
@AllSportsScan: Which tall in the VFL would be most likely to help Souv by just being a target and hoping for a contest. Maley? Pink? Biggie? MSD?
It’s an interesting discussion, because on one hand it’s obvious Larkey needs a helping hand in the form of a second key position forward. Alastair Clarkson has even mentioned the balance between getting people in at AFL level to learn v doing the same at VFL level.
But there’s also a thin line between playing people at AFL level v exposing them to something they’re not ready for yet. And the key position players currently at VFL level don’t look ready for a step up yet. Which is perfectly normal for some of them too; if Maley or Goad were ready at this point they’d be something out of the box.
I’d be looking towards the mid-season draft, depending on what is available. Considering I’m the furthest thing from a draft expert – I don’t even qualify as a draft novice – I’ll leave that discussion to someone else.
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For those who missed the introduction of a new feature in 2024, throughout the season I’ll be updating this for every team, every fortnight:
Apart from a picture here, a tweet there, or a Notebook entry from time to time, this feature is exclusive for Patreon subscribers on the $10 tier.
To find out more details and sign up, head here for the Patreon page.
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@Juryduty81: Truthfully, an article on why North has become drastically worse than last year, if that could have ever been believed.
It’s what happens when so much of the existing on-field experience departs and is replaced by more youngsters.
Regular readers will know I’ve always been a big believer in keeping a solid group of middle aged/veterans around where possible. Even if those guys aren’t capable of contributing at a higher level, even an average level helps shield younger players through, not forcing them to take an outsized role out of necessity.
Given North’s next opponent is Essendon, it’s instructive to look back at the team last time the sides met in Round 22, 2023. Half a dozen players who would be more than useful now – Ben Cunnington, Todd Goldstein, Ben McKay, Tarryn Thomas, Kayne Turner, Jack Ziebell – are off the list for varying reasons, of course not all under North’s control.
The general point is a team can’t click their fingers and replace that output instantly. Everything takes time, and the foundations have to be in place to allow the newer players to grow.
Actually, speaking of foundations…
@Craig_S: Can Clarko still coach? Because it looks like he has no idea.
This line of thinking is something I’ve seen bouncing around, either asked genuinely like the above, or from others having fun piling the boots in elsewhere.
I’m not worried about this topic because – for me anyway – it’s clear to see how the team wants to play in general play. Executing consistently is a different story of course, but I’ll try a hypothetical to illustrate:
Let’s say I decide to take up running short distance races and I show promise early on.
(For the record, straight up running is about my least favourite thing in the world but in this instance let’s pretend for a second. In reality, me racing would end up something like Cartman at the Special Olympics in that episode of South Park.)
But after a while of not getting anywhere, maybe about two years or so, a highly regarded running coach – let’s call him Alastair – sees me shuffling along and decides, ‘Ricky, I’m going to help you. We’re going to turn you into a great runner.’
The issue is I’ve entered myself in a race for 23 consecutive weeks. And despite my best efforts, it feels like I’m starting from scratch and Alastair can only teach me so much at a time.
My next few races are terrible. There’s so much going on in my head as I try to figure out how I get better while absorbing all the information Alastair is telling me.
But every so often there are glimpses in a race. Sometimes, out of the blocks, I get my start right. Other times I manage to hold on through the middle. On rare occasions I even manage to finish pretty well even though I’m still behind by a fair way.
I’m just starting from so far behind there’s only so much Alastair can do to help, apart from lay the foundation and be patient. As long as that foundation in my racing is solid, I can be confident progression will come if I continue to work hard.
I know there are short term fixes that could make me better sooner, but it would limit my ceiling as a runner. What I’m being taught is planned to have me in the best possible position to win the biggest possible races.
Because as it turns out, Alastair is also helping a group of other young racers in a similar position to me. A lot of them have also spent about two years not getting anywhere and learning bad habits from their previous running coach.
And Alastair has to take the same approach with all those other people as well. With those youngsters, people watching can see times where they’re racing in a modern, up to date fashion when everything comes together.
But they’re also coming from so far back it’s going to be sporadic at best early on. Some of those racers, highly rated at one point or another, end up falling away. There are even times when others revert to racing in an out-of-date style because it takes time to learn new routines.
All this time Alastair is teaching, waiting, teaching some more, and waiting some more. Because there’s little else he can do at this stage of the racers’ development unless he comes across a time machine. Those glimpses that come from time to time, from race to race, are something to hold onto.
Ideally in time, those glimpses hang around for a little longer and then a little longer again. Glimpses become stretches, stretches become a full race, a full race becomes full races.
The key to all of the above is making sure the foundation remains steady and up to date. So far I haven’t seen anything to doubt it. Unlike the previous racing coach.
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