It’s match sim, it’s a chance to overreact to everything, it’s February.
And it’s the first North Melbourne match analysis piece of the year on The Shinboner.
The part I enjoy most about pre-season is seeing new ideas implemented for the very first time, followed by the immediate feedback and realisation of what comes next.
Part of that was in effect for North Melbourne on Saturday as they started a campaign with high hopes of improvement on previous years.
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In addition to Patreon, you can find me on Twitter – and also Bluesky, where vibes are much more pleasant and there’s much less hate. It’s nice.
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One of North’s key subplots, at least early in the season, will be how the mid-forward rotation shakes out. Who spends more time on-ball than forward, vice versa, how it impacts the fellow forwards; there are a handful of different parts to watch.
While there’ll be plenty of time to look at everything throughout the year, what caught my eye the most against Melbourne was the different roles asked of midfielders playing forward.
More often than not, when a midfielder plays forward, really they’re just starting as a half forward before immediately coming up to the contest anyway. The stint as a forward is in name only.
Sometimes that was the case for North on Saturday, the likes of Tom Powell, Will Phillips, and Luke Parker largely roaming up from their starting position during ‘forward’ stints.
But the pair who stood out were Harry Sheezel and Luke Davies-Uniacke. Sometimes Sheezel was in the previous category, but he also had stints as essentially the deepest* forward, as was Davies-Uniacke for part of his time closer to home.
(*For as ‘deep’ as a forward can be in 2025, but we know what I mean)
There wasn’t necessarily a trigger point for their respective turns deep forward, as it happened with a variety of combinations around them – when Jack Darling was rucking, when he wasn’t rucking, when Cam Zurhaar was on, when he was off, and so on.
For it to happen with two of the nominal midfield rotation suggests it’s a key part of the plan that will carry over to start the home and away season. The wildcard is how Jy Simpkin influences it next week, along with George Wardlaw down the track. Will they eat into Sheezel and Davies-Uniacke’s forward time? Someone else’s midfield time? What parts of the structure change to accommodate them?
And then there was a unique case – almost a test case – in a division by himself. That was Colby McKercher.
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For those who missed the start of season announcement, you can find it here. And the schedule between now and the start of the season is…
| Post | Patreon access | Public access |
| General 2025 announcement | Live | Live |
| Over/under win total | Live | Live |
| Look Ahead, Part 1 | Live | Live |
| Look Ahead, Part 2 | Live | Live |
| Look Ahead, Part 3 | Live | Live |
| NMFC Match Sim Analysis | Live | |
| The Notebook, Match Sim | 24th Feb | 25th Feb |
| Continuity Rankings | 26th Feb | 27th Feb |
| NMFC v West Coast Analysis | 2nd Mar | |
| The Notebook, Pre-Season | 3rd Mar | 4th Mar |
| Team Tiers, Version 1 | 5th Mar | 6th Mar |
*Plus an extra North Melbourne post in the week of Round 1*
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With Finn O’Sullivan taking the wing opposite Bailey Scott, it left McKercher as nearly a permanent high half forward.
(Slight detour here to explain the difference between a high half forward and a ‘forward who plays midfield anyway’, as touched on in the prior section. It mainly comes down to positioning. A high half forward gets up the ground but provides support to the midfielders, where a forward becoming a midfielder simply adds to the first-choice trio and becomes a fourth [or fifth, or sixth] on-baller.)
After spending his debut season at half back, it had been well documented a move further up the ground was coming for McKercher. Based on early showings there’ll be an adjustment period before McKercher starts making this move work for him.
Watching him on Saturday painted a picture of a player caught in two minds; trapped in last year’s mindset while adjusting to the new demands of a different position.
At half back, the game is in front of you and it’s (relatively) simpler than the demands of a high half forward. It wasn’t a surprise McKercher’s best moments against Melbourne came when he was able to get behind the ball and then run through setups.
In between those moments, McKercher was a little lost at times, a bit slow to recognise his tasks. For example here, watch him not quite be in the right position by the time the ball up comes, not quite meet Pickett as he comes through, then float around and not really impact:
And again here at the bottom of the screen, McKercher is just … there. You can see he’s not yet sure how to best influence and position himself in this newer role against proper opposition.
To be clear, this is very normal as part of the learning process. It’s in bold and italics so there’s no confusion. None of this should raise any alarm bells at this stage. The reason I bring it up today is two-fold:
a) If this is his ‘final’ position, so to speak, is there a level of contentment in allowing McKercher to play through the mistakes and learn on the run, or…
b) Is the better option to put him in a position that helps the team more now while allowing him to continue his education off Broadway, i.e. at training during the week and in select moments elsewhere
The wildcard in this, to use the same phrase as the previous section, is what level of pressure there is internally to start winning and start winning as soon as possible.
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The Create Your Own Depth Chart feature is now part of the List Management suite, all on the $5 tier for Patreon subscribers:
You can subscribe to the Patreon for 2025 right here. The three tiers are much the same as previous years, with refined features for the top two.
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Three quick hitters to finish the post off:
The influence of naming two small forwards
It appears two genuine small forwards is – currently – Option A for the forward line. At the moment that means Jacob Konstanty and Robert Hansen. While there were undoubtedly parts of Saturday that harked back to recent years, Melbourne able to move fairly easily in possession, there were also better moments.
Sometimes there are trigger points that cue a wider team response. Think of when someone kicks a remarkable goal to inspire their team, or some pushing and shoving gets a team in the game. It’s a similar type of scenario with picking two small forwards and the team wide training that goes along with it.
There’s an implicit message sent that this is important, get to work on it. Team buy-in follows as a result, and then group improvement starts to come. We saw O’Sullivan come from his wing and help lock in a couple of times, complementing the work of the forward half.
And although it’s still a fair way away from good forward half pressure, or even league average – even league average pressure would be a significant improvement on previous years. Step by step.
The skills
It’s not exactly breaking news in saying skills were poor on Saturday. Given the conditions – very hot and very blustery – it provides a level of mitigation to step down from a five-alarm fire. It’s probably two alarm, two and a half tops. (Props to whoever recognises the reference)
Let’s hold fire for another week and see what it’s like against West Coast in the final tune up before Round 1. There more structural pieces will fall into place, in theory simplifying what’s needed in possession.
The backline mix
Last week I may or may not have thought two key backs was the initial plan to start the season and posted as such. Nope. Sound the buzzer. Wrong.
Three key talls in Griffin Logue, Charlie Comben, and Aidan Corr. Leigh Adams said as much in his post-match press conference.
Then after that there’s Luke McDonald and Jackson Archer, followed by two rebounders; Caleb Daniel and at this stage Darcy Tucker.
It’s putting a lot of responsibility on Daniel’s shoulders, which could be a reason to find a way for McKercher to float back a little more. Opponents will invest in stopping Daniel – whether it’s a straight one-on-one matchup, a team effort, or something in between – and happily live with whatever the rest of North’s defensive unit provides.
Given how important bounce off half back is, it’ll be something the North coaching staff is well aware of. What they settle on for Plan B and Plan C will be interesting.