The scoreboard flattered North Melbourne on Saturday, a 17-point margin far from a true reflection of general play against the Western Bulldogs.
North’s midfield lowered their colours to the Bulldogs’, a 40-28 clearance count loss dictating the game flow from start to finish. Or to be more specific, start to early in the last quarter, at which point the Bulldogs stuck it in neutral for the rest of the way. Maybe even reverse, so uninterested they were in expanding their advantage.
Regardless, North’s midfield setup in the concussion-enforced absence of George Wardlaw either confirmed or revealed – depending on which side you sit – a handful of discussion points for the near future. It’ll be the main topic for today’s post.
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Before Saturday, the only other game Wardlaw had missed this year was the Round 6 clunker v Hawthorn. On that day, it was noticeable how little drive North were able to get out of their midfield and how easily Hawthorn got significant wins from theirs.
While it’s a much-improved North side since then – as we’ve tracked together in the couple of months since – similar issues presented against the Bulldogs. And while the Bulldogs have found a really nice groove with their on-ballers and are in the upper tier of midfield groups across the league, from North’s point of view the issues come with the mix of players who ran through there without Wardlaw.
Wardlaw + Luke Davies-Uniacke = two explosive, powerful players, which enables more mix-and-match combinations: Short periods with only one or the other are more feasible; while both are in there it allows Will Phillips to execute his tag without North losing too much offensively; depending on game situation remaining players can be changed to suit and still cover most the required attributes needed at any one time; and the list goes on.
It’s a different calculation when there’s only one of Wardlaw and Davies-Uniacke for an entire game. I mentioned recently how since the bye one midfield rotation had been carved out for a general defensive role – it was Jy Simpkin to start, and then his late withdrawal against Collingwood opened up a spot for Phillips’ tag since.
The issue was in Wardlaw’s absence, his minutes were almost entirely taken by Simpkin, making the first-choice rotation Davies-Uniacke, Phillips, and Simpkin. In isolation, the games of the latter two weren’t bad by any means. Phillips kept Treloar to a standard game when he’s probably been the most underrated player in the league this season, and Simpkin had a decent amount of ball himself.
But this is where the importance of individual midfield roles come into play. It’s arguably never been more crucial. While those games of Simpkin and Phillips were fine in isolation, when combined with Davies-Uniacke the bigger picture problems become apparent, especially up against the Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs were able to focus on Davies-Uniacke more than they normally would, because they know he’s the main target at stoppages and around contests to break lines and provide drive. As a result, Davies-Uniacke had season lows in kicks (5), disposals (17), and metres gained (178).
Without Davies-Uniacke providing his normal drive, it presented an opportunity for someone else to step up to try and replace it.
But the options were either slim, or didn’t fit with each other. Tom Powell alongside Phillips presents a conundrum of a smaller pair who, for their respective skill sets, both lack the physical attributes to threaten opposing midfielders when working in tandem.
It’s the reason Powell and Phillips have been largely kept separate in their midfield minutes over the journey. As it turned out, Powell was shifted back in the second half after Zac Fisher’s leg complaint forced a substitution.
Then if the Treloar tag was dropped, could Phillips play a more offensively damaging role and/or ask him to play somewhere else? The answer to both of those questions, at this stage anyway, is no.
At times this year Cam Zurhaar and Paul Curtis have spent varying times on-ball, but they were both very much needed in their forward roles – particularly with the three Bulldogs key defenders blanketing their respective North forwards. The medium and general forwards looked more threatening than the keys pretty much all afternoon, even despite the relative paucity of inside 50 entries.
Perhaps the only realistic lever that didn’t get pulled was asking Harry Sheezel to be more of a primary midfielder rather than a half forward coming up, but that had its own complications as well. That position in the rotation was an area providing North with an advantage over the Bulldogs’ half backs.
So there were few options available to North to swing the tide. Marcus Bontempelli had another ridiculous game despite his back spasms during the week, Ed Richards and Tom Liberatore both had solid games while Treloar dealt with his tag, and behind all that they were able to dominate territory and keep North locked in their back half for long periods of time.
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For those who have missed previous match analyses, here are links to the last five matches:
Decisions and progress: Round 15 v Melbourne
Riding the rollercoaster: Round 14 v Collingwood
Foreign concepts: Round 13 v West Coast
Assessing and resetting: Round 11 v Port Adelaide
An individual focus: Round 10 v Essendon
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Some of this will be resolved in time as Colby McKercher graduates to more midfield time over the next 12-18 months. What that final role ultimately looks like is still to be determined, although my best bet is somewhat similar to Errol Gulden; largely starting on a wing and coming in from there, alongside second-string on-ball rotations. That pace and kicking ability will provide another element for North’s midfield.
While Sheezel is never going to be the power/explosive type, he’s already freakish in a multitude of ways and will only get better over the next season or two as he adds an extra yard and fully nails down his mid/forward role. It’s easy to forget he’s only played eight games since the switch from half back, and he’s still been required to head back there at times in those matches.
There’ll be moves in the off-season, internal development, and always a handful of things no-one externally sees coming.
The words of Brad Scott once upon a time are also ringing in my head right now when he’d tell me something along the lines of, ‘no team can instantly replace one of their best players.’
Although Wardlaw has only played 21 games, he’s undoubtedly in that class for North Melbourne. So for all the above, it’s near impossible to replace everything he provides. Part of the learning experience is finding out what can be covered in his – or any other key player’s – absence.
Let’s be honest, it’d almost have been more surprising if North stumbled across a perfect rotation in Wardlaw’s absence right out of the gate. But down the track, when North are hypothetically playing in matches with real stakes, these questions about availability and roles have to have answers:
“If Wardlaw goes down during a game, what’s our reaction?”
“If Davies-Uniacke can’t shake a tag, what do we change?”
“If it looks like we’re stuck in mud, who can we throw in there?”
Even if they’re imperfect, something is better than nothing. To that end I’d expect North to take their learnings from Saturday at Marvel Stadium and apply it next weekend against Gold Coast.
Whether it’s a personnel tweak, shuffling priorities in the rotation, or something else altogether, I can’t imagine we’ll see the same midfield setup against the Suns. Especially considering they had Will Graham play a semi-defensive role against Collingwood, which probably means it’s something North have to factor into their preparation as well.
It’s a winnable game considering the Suns’ struggles away from home in the last 12 months.