The reaction to Saturday’s game was strange. To me, at least.
I’ll freely admit that for the most part I happily stay in my own bubble when consuming North Melbourne games and/or content. Maybe I’m scarred after six years of reading every comment on the club’s social media posts.
But every so often I put my head over the parapet to assess supporter and online fan base reactions. Sometimes you just have to make sure you’re not on another planet. In a bad way, that is. Sometimes it’s a good thing to be on another planet to what some people say.
Nevertheless, after what I thought was a fairly predictable game with its own set of strengths, weaknesses, and game flows from each side, what I found surprised me. It turned out I definitely was on another planet to quite a bit of the sentiment.
That sent me down a rabbit hole, reading comment after comment, page after page, attempting to figure out the difference between me on one side thinking the game was fairly straight forward, and an outcry from the other side decrying nearly everything on display – in the small and big picture – in a different way to normal post-match frustrations after a loss. Notable exception: Harry Sheezel, of course.
So with that in mind, figuring out what caused said reactions is going to be the topic for today’s post. Maybe it doesn’t come across quite the same as most of 2024’s post-match analyses, but hopefully still just as useful.
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On Saturday, there was one side with about 15 years of relatively uninterrupted peace in its football department, overall club focuses, and inbuilt benefits.
While Geelong’s 2024 list has undoubted flaws, the advantages they’ve earned with all their work since the mid to late 2000s means most can be covered.
Also on Saturday, the other side – North Melbourne – was enjoying approximately month six of relatively uninterrupted peace in its football department, overall club focuses, all without any inbuilt benefits.
And ‘month six’, depending on how generous your reading is of Tarryn Thomas’ sacking, comes after roughly a four-year stretch of continual batterings from pillar to post, whether self-inflicted or as collateral damage in external issues.
In just six months, the progress has been notable. Some might call it gradual, some might call it impressive, some might even call it excellent. Regardless, what we can all agree on is the North Melbourne of Round 20 is multiple steps forward from the North Melbourne of Round 1.
(The natural response of ‘it’s not hard to be better than the start of the season’ has been noted and is fair enough too)
To stick to the blindingly obvious, indisputable items: Colby McKercher has been as advertised, Griffin Logue has made a successful comeback from his knee injury, Jackson Archer is now genuine best 22 and adding more strings to his game by the week, Zac Fisher has been a more than useful pickup, Tristan Xerri has taken his chance as the number one ruck, George Wardlaw has continued improving by the week and getting requisite games in the bank before properly exploding, Charlie Comben has enjoyed a vital stretch of uninterrupted football to set him up for the future, and Sheezel is a star of the competition right now. That’s a third of the team.
But when the bar was nearly on the ground to begin with, said bar has a long way to go before catching up with the rest of the competition.
Especially when the direct opponent is Geelong. Saturday made it the Cats’ 13th straight win over North; all but one of them by 20 points or more, the last five by an average of nearly 70 points.
The IP built up by Geelong over the journey allows them to mix and match with all sorts of combinations.
They can flip their deepest key defender into the ruck and then back again, their best intercept key defender can become, nominally, a starting midfielder before floating around and having his on-ball rotation filled by someone else, their best key forward can spend a half on the wing and be replaced by a midfielder, on-ballers can switch to the wing and vice versa, half backs can move on-ball, and by this point I think the point is clear: the Cats have structural options most teams can only dream of.
All this allows players to be introduced and brought along in ways that minimise their weaknesses and highlight their strengths. For example, and although it’s an impossible to prove hypothetical I’m happy to stick by it, no other team could have brought Lawson Humphries, Shaun Mannagh, and Ollie Dempsey along to the point they’ve all contributed near-instantly in their first extended run in the AFL team.
While each of the three players have different stories, from Mannagh as a mature ager, Dempsey in his third season, and Humphries in his first, the overall point is Geelong can get creative with each player’s journey because of their good structural work to get to this point.
Meanwhile, for all North’s improvement this year, they’re still only a couple of steps removed from ground zero.
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For those who have missed previous match analyses, here are links to the last five matches:
Forward progress: Round 19 v Carlton
Reality check: Round 18 v Sydney
477 days later: Round 17 v Gold Coast
Midfield mixing: Round 16 v Western Bulldogs
Decisions and progress: Round 15 v Melbourne
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On a man v man basis, if one wanted to argue North Melbourne’s midfield is more talented than Geelong’s, I’d be willing to hear it out. And perhaps that’s where some of the post-match frustrated reaction comes from.
Because in the initial phase of play it looked like North were able to get joy from their on-ballers. A handful had high possession numbers, the overall clearance numbers were relatively even, North had the contested possession advantage, and ended up with a respectable 49 inside 50s for the afternoon.
Last time North played Geelong, the whole blog post was about the initial structure around stoppages and contests. It was only a slight issue this time – another nod to this season’s general improvement – but the connection piece moving away from congestion was.
Part of that was because of where North is at in their progress, and part of that was because of where Geelong are at in their progress.
Geelong are always a defence-first team, with the move of Tom Stewart to the midfield based on improving their back seven.
Stewart plays the defensive role at centre bounces and at the initial phase of play, before immediately dropping back behind the ball as an extra defender. In many ways it’s similar to Rhys Stanley’s ruck role for much of the 2022 premiership year, but in this case it makes it much tougher for teams to send a defensive forward to Stewart like earlier this season.
It also provides a slight opening for teams if they can win contests cleanly while Stewart is retreating, room available to run and carry right through the front. Early on North made the most of it, a couple of scintillating handball chains executed like they drew it up during the week.
But the fork in the road came after Geelong got their transitions in roles completed much smoother, much quicker, and matched it with increased pressure around the ball.
When the pressure came and North weren’t able to get out the front of contests as easily, they were forced to be a touch safer in possession. And because safer = slower, it allowed Geelong to set up behind the ball. And when Geelong are set up behind the ball, good luck getting any sort of successful ball movement.
So we saw all the North possession amount to not a lot, and then off turnover Geelong made the most of it because they’re a well-oiled machine. North dropped off significantly after the early period, the third quarter patch the only other time they looked threatening offensively.
It makes perfect sense to be really frustrated with the drop off too. The first 10 minutes looked so good, as did the period in the third quarter. Why can’t it be that way more often?
The answer is it will be that way more often – eventually. North aren’t yet at the stage in their evolution where they have multiple switches to flick, multiple realistic avenues to threaten the better teams.
While an argument can be made for North’s midfield being more talented, at this stage they don’t have the levels in their structure that Geelong possess. Not even close. And that part only comes with experience, continuity, and time.
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The last part in the understandable frustration probably stems from seeing all the work done in the third quarter to draw within 10 points, then seeing the margin back at 28 a couple of minutes later. Bang-bang-bang and the game was all but over.
How can a side work so hard and then give it all away in two minutes of game time? Because sometimes the best players do best player things and there’s little that can be done to stop it.
Tyson Stengle’s two goals were just class, and then Patrick Dangerfield’s big pack mark and goal was much the same. Then the psychological blow Geelong always hold with their strong defensive system makes it tough for opponents to muster a repeat effort.
At the moment North have good players, and even a couple of great players. But there hasn’t been enough continuity – yet – to establish the type of system that strikes fear into opponents, accentuates the strengths of role players and simultaneously hides their weaknesses.
And maybe, just maybe, above it all, it’s where the frustration ultimately comes from. All the mistakes of the past take time to rectify, not to mention untangle. So when expectations are raised with a patch of good form, along comes a reminder, in the form of arguably the most stable team in the league, that there’s still a long way to go.
But next week is a fun test case to see if North can match those raised expectations. For the first time* in a long time, they’ll enter a game in Melbourne comfortable favourites, with a rest advantage and hopefully a couple of important inclusions as well.
(*West Coast Covid game in 2022 doesn’t count here)
It’s a different type of mental preparation, one most of this North group won’t have experience with. How it’s approached will be apparent early on at Marvel Stadium.