Facing the standard setters: Round 11, 2025 v Collingwood

If North Melbourne can get to a spot where their system and understanding is half as good as Collingwood’s right now, they’ll be ludicrously well placed for the future.

Watching Collingwood in action is seeing a side where every Pie knows where their mates are at all times, along with what everyone is supposed to achieve individually.

That understanding, force of habit on both sides of the ball, along with the ability to solve challenges, was the key story throughout Saturday night at Marvel Stadium.

North acquitted themselves well with a clearly defined plan that worked for long periods. But ultimately, it was Collingwood’s ability to know what was coming and react that eventually wore North down.

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The Patreon is up and running once again for 2025, which you can find right here. The three tiers are much the same as previous years, with refined features for the top two.

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, even though there’s not a large AFL community yet.

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Coming into the round, North averaged 70.8 uncontested marks per game – third fewest in the league with only Gold Coast (66.8) and West Coast (63.5) lower. It made 33 uncontested marks in the first quarter, and 64 in the first half, a notable departure from the norm.

The goal was clear. After winning possession North wanted to dictate tempo, understanding how dangerous Collingwood are when allowed to freewheel. The planned counter was to move up and down through the gears with kicking.

Sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes in between the layers of defence, sometimes over the top of layers, sometimes wide; using all the different options at their disposal. A couple of examples:

That disposal by foot was another notable departure from the norm. To use the same phrase again, coming into the round North averaged a 1.26 kick to handball ratio, third lowest in the league.

Small sample size alert and all that, but in the first quarter on Saturday, North went at a 2.62 kick to handball ratio. If maintained over a full season it would set all sorts of records and lead the league by, to use technical terminology, a million miles.

The heavy kicking style can be used to either attack or defend depending on the game situation, albeit normally a tactic reserved for the more advanced teams given the complexities in successfully executing it.

Through a half, North had largely done it quite well. Off the back of contest (+22 contested possessions) and clearance (+7) advantages, North had restricted Collingwood to 4.9; a number that looked inaccurate on the surface but in reality boosted by four rushed behinds.

However there were signs of what could happen if Collingwood got the game on their terms, either from winning contests or wheeling into space.

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For those who have missed it, the last five North match analysis pieces on The Shinboner, plus…

2025’s Team Structures Page
North Melbourne’s Round 10 analysis v Richmond
North Melbourne’s Round 9 analysis v Brisbane
North Melbourne’s Round 8 analysis v Essendon
North Melbourne’s Round 7 analysis v Port Adelaide
North Melbourne’s Round 6 analysis v Carlton

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A common theme throughout the year has been how North defends in space, often focusing on the system.

Although it appeared Saturday was more of the same at times, the difference was Collingwood simply being too good in evading North’s defensive setup to get out to space – not necessarily out wide, but often in between the lines of defence or over the top of a press.

North – by and large, anyway – were doing the right things defensively, but Collingwood were a step ahead whenever they won clean ball. We didn’t see too much of it in the first half, but there were glimpses:

Although North only allowed 22 points after 32 turnovers to half time – a very good ratio – those glimpses, as illustrated above, indicated the way forward for Collingwood after the main break.

The game did indeed change in the third quarter as Collingwood were able to balance out the contest. Their two-pronged focus off the back of that was to move the ball more aggressively and make the most of North’s high pressing defence by finding more space over the top closer to goal.

Right from the outset we saw the change pay dividends:

Even though, once again, it appeared Collingwood missed a plethora of chances (3.8 for the term) with the total inflated by four rushed behinds, the flow of general play had undoubtedly changed.

It’s a measure of where each team is at in their current journey. Even allowing for all the key missing Magpies on Saturday – Pendlebury, Sidebottom, Hill, Moore, De Goey, Schultz, and McStay, just to name a few – their system is at an advanced stage that North can only dream of at their current stage of development.

So even when North arrived at Marvel with a clear plan and executed nearly all of it well for the first half, with some more of it even well into the third quarter, when the charge came they didn’t have adjustments available in their kit to change.

That being said, at three quarter time there were still elements of North’s game working relatively well. And it was only a three-point game too…

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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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North Melbourne people will look at the fourth quarter and be incredibly frustrated at the way they fell away so easily.

Collingwood people will look at the fourth quarter and be incredibly pleased at the way they took away everything North wanted to do.

For the first half of the final term, both can be true. For the second half of the final term, it was more about North putting the cue in the rack.

Collingwood’s pressure reached its highest mark of the game and as a consequence, not only were North unable find the kick-mark game it had deployed through the first three quarters, it also couldn’t dictate tempo. The remaining working elements of North’s game ground to a halt.

North’s kick to handball ratio v Collingwood
Q1: 2.62
Q2: 2.03
Q3: 2.07
Q4: 1.00

As we’ve already seen, when the game was open through the first three quarters, North couldn’t stay with Collingwood.

That meant when the game was even more open in the last quarter, North had even less of a chance to stay with Collingwood. It’s why we saw what we saw, the Pies slamming on eight goals (five from turnovers) to one and cruising away to a 45-point win.

Sometimes it’s just as simple as not being good enough to stick with a side who currently have answers to nearly every challenge they face.

If I could bring myself to end a piece with a big shrugging shoulders emoji, that’s what would be placed here. Unless this game ends up as the first signifier of a trend down the track.

Programming Note

Naturally with North Melbourne enjoying the bye in Round 12, there won’t be a game analysis post. What there will be though, on the Thursday or Friday leading into Round 13, is a post setting the tone for the second half of the season.

The plan is for it to cover what’s improved and what hasn’t in 2025 so far, along with key things that need to be achieved in the remaining matches. What the end result looks like once the post is completed in a week and a half remains to be seen, but as it stands this is the goal.