Inside v outside: Round 1, 2025 v Western Bulldogs

After several hours in a sweatbox, it was a sense of what could have been for North Melbourne.

On paper, a 16-point loss to the Western Bulldogs looks relatively acceptable. But considering large chunks of the final three quarters were played on North’s terms, the nagging feeling is an opportunity for a season-opening win was squandered.

The key theme of the game was the battle between inside and outside. It’s what most of today’s post will focus on, along with a couple of rapid fire points at the end.

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Slight detour to start: It’s a relief when you’re tweeting away about what you think is a key part of the game and then it’s confirmed in the coach’s post-match press conference. Imagine if you were completely wrong to start a season, would have been a blow to the ego.

Anyway, so much of Saturday night’s game (and current day AFL in general) was a battle between the inside and outside.

How many of your resources do you want to dedicate to the inside, either through winning the ball and/or keeping it there when it’s in dispute? Or are you content to dedicate fewer resources to the inside and look to own the outside instead?

Then there’s the balance between not wanting to overcommit to one or the other, because then it becomes a game of Russian Roulette – if your way doesn’t win every time, you’re in for a world of hurt.

It can all go in a multitude of directions and sometimes get really complicated in figuring out what each team wants to achieve. Saturday night though? Fairly simple.

North wanted to keep their opponents inside as much as possible, knowing the Bulldogs’ strength lies in getting the ball outside and tearing teams to shreds waltzing through open space.

The issue: North overcommitted in that direction early on. It meant if the team defence wasn’t picture perfect, they’d get exposed on the outside. As Alastair Clarkson described post-match, with the bolded phrases my own personal emphasis:

“When the ball’s in congestion, there’s this fight. This tension between the two sides in terms of who’s got the inside control of the contest and who’s got the outside.

“Each coach and each team is going in there saying, if you’ve got the inside control there’s your first chance of getting your hands on the ball. But if you are on the inside then you better do something special to get it to the outside.

“Ultimately that’s where the Dogs are really, really strong. They hold their balance really strongly and when they do get it to the outside it’s usually to a teammate in space. That’s what we were unable to combat strongly enough tonight.”

The easiest way to visualise North’s defensive plan is imagining a set of straight train tracks. That’s what they wanted to keep the Bulldogs on. Last time I checked train tracks are, by necessity, pretty close together, hard to move through dynamically, and if you allow your train to go off them you’re in some trouble.

Although for this to work, North needed to guard the outside of those train tracks, not allowing the Bulldogs to find a detour. In the first quarter especially, their guard was too narrow, allowing space too easily on the outside.

It meant whenever the Bulldogs gained possession easily – either through an unexpected turnover, or contest win – they had all the space they wanted to get outside and then go.

This screengrab from the first few minutes illustrates it perfectly. An inside 50 entry, the team follows in behind it, but the Bulldogs gain possession after a scrappy Jy Simpkin kick. Look at what they have to play with outside:

A few minutes later, after a contest win in nearly an identical area, we can basically see an action replay:

This is why it looked so simple for the Bulldogs to move the ball during the first quarter and early stages of the second. North’s pressure had to be not only good, but nearly elite team-wide to consistently pull the plan off. It’s tough to do in perfect conditions, let alone what Saturday night served up.

But there was an adjustment made, and it kicked in just in time. From a 28-point deficit early in the second quarter, things started to turn.

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To best explain how North shifted their defence after that slow start, the famous ground diagrams, immaculately drawn as always, make their return. If anyone was expecting my drawing skills to have improved over summer, I regret to inform you they have not. Sorry.

Nevertheless, if this was North in the first quarter…

…this was the shift they made afterwards:

Now the Bulldogs, if they wanted width, had to go really wide most of the time. Once a team makes their choice to do that, hugging the boundary line, it’s much easier to keep them on the train tracks and in straight lines from there.

Take this clip as an example. With no easy option offered, unlike the first quarter, Rory Lobb has to go as wide as possible. North don’t have to commit bulk numbers to Lachie Bramble as he receives, because they’re controlling the ground.

Bramble is forced into a low percentage kick that goes out on the full and from the ensuing turnover, North go down the field and goal from the inside 50 crumb.

Or this passage a few minutes later, which fizzles out to a boundary throw in. From the instant Bailey Williams takes the intercept mark, he’s looking to switch play. It’s also Ryley Sanders’ first instinct when he marks.

But throughout it all, North’s setup doesn’t allow it, so the Bulldogs are forced to chip down the line until one of those chips are spoiled over the line.

It was this change that not only put North right back in the game but allowed them to control most of the middle two quarters.

From the moment North trailed by 28 points early in the second quarter, until the three quarter time siren, they conceded six goals. In order, they came either entirely, or largely thanks to:

– A Sam Darcy contested mark over the top of a one-on-one contest freeing play up
– Good small forward play from Laitham Vandermeer, catching Finn O’Sullivan out
– A combination of a poor Charlie Comben kick and Colby McKercher not holding a mark
– Another good Darcy mark and then everyone forgetting Bailey Dale likes to run past for a handball receive and kick at goal from range
– A 50 metre penalty to Aaron Naughton that wasn’t paid half a dozen other times when it happened to players from both teams
– A turnover at high half forward allowing the Bulldogs to sweep towards goal

Only the last goal could be argued as part of a system breakdown. The other five were all Bulldogs moments, avoidable individual errors, or … other elements of the game, to put it kindly.

It meant for all their good work over nearly two full quarters, North had only managed to cut their deficit from 28 to seven, with a term to play: 9.7 to 6.4.

When that happens, there’s no margin for error. Given the game was extremely low turnover*, likely due to the conditions, it made running down a deficit tough. Fewer turnovers = easier for leading team to control tempo, along with an outsized importance on stoppage the longer the game goes.

*Total turnovers by game so far in Round 1
– 153: Richmond v Carlton
– 145: Collingwood v Port Adelaide
– 140: Sydney v Brisbane
– 123: Hawthorn v Essendon
– 120: Geelong v Fremantle
– 104: Western Bulldogs v North Melbourne

So when these three things happen in the first 3:31 of game time in the final quarter…

– North’s midfielders lose their shape at the first centre bounce and find themselves both too close to the ball and on the wrong side of it (ignoring the two free kicks that would be paid to North on a different day)
– Jackson Archer and Darcy Tucker don’t communicate clearly at half forward, allowing Bulldogs to swoop and take it to the goal line
– Luke Parker ambitiously flies for a mark, leading to North losing their shape at the drop of the ball while the Bulldogs hold theirs and then run forward

…it means a seven-point deficit becomes 25 in quick time and it’s a bridge too far, albeit tantalisingly far instead of in the next suburb.

Which is a shame because for all the avoidable mistakes, there were definitely positives to take out of the game. Just to name a few, we saw:

– A significant in-game adjustment helping to course correct; not something there’s been too much of in recent times. When things have started rolling away, it’s tended to get out of hand quickly
– Even allowing for the conditions creating a slightly different game to what we normally see, 27 scoring shots is another tick
– Jacob Konstanty and Finn O’Sullivan having successful AFL debuts, the pair showing more than enough signs at either end of the ground

And just as important as all the above, there surely won’t be many more games with conditions as uncomfortable as that. Or more to the point, conditions as avoidable as that.