One last game: Round 24, 2025 v Adelaide

North Melbourne’s last game of 2025 was a fun, end-to-end encounter that ended with a narrow 13-point loss to minor premiers Adelaide.

As far as rates of improvement go, it’s eons better than 2024’s finale with a 124-point loss to Hawthorn, which is nice.

Today’s post will juggle between individual game analysis, putting those moments into a larger season context, and then a look at the year as a whole.

There’s plenty to work through, so let’s get started.

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For those who missed the announcement, the Finals Dossiers will return for 2025.

In the sixth edition of the series, all of the top four teams will be covered, with each post covering a team’s evolution from week to week throughout the year, how they beat you, how you beat them, along with a couple of other tweaks to previous editions that won’t be revealed until the first post drops.

Depending on an individual’s Patreon subscription level, they’ll receive Finals Dossiers access at different times.

Here are all the details on what to expect.

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The forward pressure v defensive half scores

Coming into the game, Adelaide ranked 17^th at turning their rebound 50s to inside 50s.

On Saturday at Marvel Stadium, nearly half the Crows’ rebound 50s became inside 50s and there were nine scoring shots for seven goals.

Nine scoring shots starting from defensive 50 is the equal fifth most by any team in a game this season, bettered only by:

11: Sydney in Round 22 v Brisbane
10: Geelong in Round 17 v Richmond
10: Western Bulldogs in Round 20 v Essendon
10: GWS in Round 23 v Gold Coast

The Crows didn’t change much in their ball movement either. Rather they were presented by North either over or under committing to the ball depending on the situation, allowing Adelaide to pick their way through as they pleased.

An example that illustrates more with a freeze frame than a video came about halfway through the second quarter. When the opposition has possession on the last line of defence, it should be a situation where they’re stuck with few options apart from a bail out kick.

In other words, the defending team shouldn’t be creating a five on two near the ball carrier when he’s still in a position to dispose relatively comfortably:

Even though the above passage was stopped at the wing, the process behind allowing Adelaide to get out wasn’t executed properly.

Or when an inside 50 entry goes long and deep, there are two goals for the side attacking: Set up around the ball in a way that blocks exits and set up behind the ball to prevent any easy get out kick.

In this example North achieve neither. The play almost develops in slow motion until Adelaide spot what’s been given to them. From there the rest is academic.

The last example is more complicated, so it requires a further explanation.

Although the turnover from Tom Powell is really poor and supercharges Adelaide’s transition, if we go back to when the ball enters North’s 50, it’s easy to notice the Crows have owned the outside of the play, pushing North inside.

By North allowing this to happen, it achieves two things. Unsurprisingly neither of them are good:

1) Minimises the attacking area North have to work in
2) Maximises the attacking area Adelaide get to work in if they gain possession

Then when Powell does turn it over, the outlets behind the ball aren’t blocked off. A simple kick from Brodie Smith to Riley Thilthorpe starts the transition and it’s another easy shot on goal for Adelaide.

For all the effort North put in, the structure behind it too often allows opponents to have their way with ball movement.

Forcing turnovers v general structure

This balance between looking to force turnovers, but a mix of structure and decision-making stopping North from executing, has been a constant all year.

Before Round 1, the pre-season checklist post highlighted a need to improve the turnover game.

In 2024, no side forced fewer turnovers than North, while in 2023 it was only West Coast. For those who missed the words, a top-line summary:

Creating lots of turnovers isn’t a foolproof method for success – Brisbane were in the bottom third last year, for instance – but 18^th in 2024 and 17^th in 2023 is a fairly clear sign there’s improvement needed without the ball.

In 2025, North were again last, this time by a considerable distance, in total turnovers forced. With the time and resources invested in trying to defend around the ball, you’d expect a much better output.

The improvement for time in forward half was slight, but noticeable – 42.8 percent in 2024 to 45.2 in 2025 – with both those tallies still sitting bottom of the league. Part of this area has been minimised somewhat with the focus on maintaining the ball. Time in possession improved by a couple of minutes per match this year from last.

Either way, those slight improvements can’t obscure the fact the turnover team defence still isn’t anywhere near the level it needs to be.

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

The 2025 Team Structures Page
North Melbourne’s Round 23 analysis v Richmond
North Melbourne’s Round 22 analysis v GWS
North Melbourne’s Round 21 analysis v St Kilda
North Melbourne’s Round 20 analysis v Geelong
North Melbourne’s Round 19 analysis v Sydney

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Finding the right stoppage v turnover balance (part 1)

Carrying on from the above, the turnover v stoppage balance has tilted too far towards the latter at times. While it makes sense to play to your strengths, which is supposed to be North’s midfield, it’s been boom or bust from that area which has then hurt the defence.

For example, North, at time of writing, actually rank top six for points per clearance this year and total clearance differential. However, that’s more than cancelled out by being worst in the league – by a street – at points conceded from clearances lost.

All the offensive focus on stoppages gets handed back, and North’s overall point differential from the area is actually 14^th.

Finding the right stoppage v turnover balance (part 2)

Then because of all the investment there, and the turnover issues mentioned in the previous section, North actually score the lowest percentage (out of total score) from turnovers in the league.

Using Saturday’s game as an example, although North were able to slice Adelaide up from stoppage, Adelaide more than made up for it off turnover with some really simple scores:

Round 24, 2025	Points from stoppages	Points from turnovers
North Melbourne	66	34
Adelaide	32	74

It should be something North can fix over the summer with a strong pre-season, structurally making tweaks to balance their game out a little more, with the looming spectre of some rule changes that could change a lot.

If there’s going to be a commitment to one side over the other to this extent, it needs to be capitalised on. As a point of comparison, the Bulldogs also over-index in focusing on stoppage scoring. Their difference is they defend well from the clearances they lose, and even though they don’t force a heap of turnovers – bottom four in the league – they score at a top-two rate to make up for it.

The team structures every week

Those on the $10 Patreon tier were able to see this evolve throughout the season.

From the outset there’s been a focus on three key defenders, although if Jackson Archer hadn’t dealt with injuries and suspension there’s every chance it might have switched to two keys and two general defenders somewhere down the line, with Archer alongside Luke McDonald.

The on-ball rotation has gradually shortened over the course of the year, with 2025 finishing as basically a four-man group and more high half forwards instead of extra on-ballers coming up to the contest.

If the rumoured interest in Marcus Windhager is true – reports of a five-year contract offer normally don’t come out of nowhere, or exist as an agent special to help drive up the contract value from a player’s existing club – it indicates even more capital invested in the midfield group. We’ll come back to this topic in trade period if the deal goes through, because it’s a complicated one that needs in-depth exploration.

While the search for a small forward is never ending, the year ends with no real long-term clarity. There’s suddenly no shortage of options to roll through the position: whether any are good enough to lock a spot down into the future is unknown. While Jacob Konstanty played every game, and carried out important roles from time to time, his ceiling isn’t overly high.

The wildcard in all of this is which rule changes are activated for 2026, and when those are confirmed. If last disposal out of bounds is brought in, along with a shift in the ruck that may prioritise more athletic types, it could have an enormous effect on how North have been trying to set up their team.

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For those who have missed it, the last five Notebook entries on The Shinboner, plus…

The 2025 Team Structures Page
The different use of uncontested marks: Round 23’s Notebook
Houston’s role, Cameron’s focus, Carlton’s path: Round 22’s Notebook
Melbourne’s list and style assessment: Round 21’s Notebook
Hawthorn’s shift, St Kilda’s list approach: Round 20’s Notebook
Brisbane testing tweaks, a crack in Collingwood’s midfield: Round 18’s Notebook

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The minutes played by age and list breakdown

Even with the extra experience addition this year of Jack Darling (~2400 minutes), Luke Parker (~2250 minutes), and Caleb Daniel (~2530 minutes), it was still a young side North rolled out this year.

They were top four for percentage of total minutes played by those in their age 22 year or under, and third last in the same statistic but for players in their age 29 year or over.

A look at how the team has evolved in age group – for those in the 22 – from 2024 to 2025 shows a natural progression:

While there was clearly a level of impatience in last year’s move to trade 2025’s first-round draft pick for a key position player who will take time to develop, this year’s weaker draft should handcuff any further big swings for the short term. In theory, anyway.

The last thing North want to do with their moves for 2026, after everything that’s happened over the last few years, is make the mistake of permanently hopping off the talent acquisition stage too early.

If they think the team is closer to popping than it actually is and get it wrong, it puts a hard ceiling on what North can achieve. We’ll see what happens in the off-season.

Has progress been made?

If we go back to the start of the season, Alastair Clarkson said the following in an interview with the AFL website:

“A key measure for us this year will be how many games are we still really, really competitive in late in games to give us a chance? It’s how deep we can go into games…”

Following that measure, 2024’s output to work off was…

• 7: Games that were either a win or live late on
• 14: Games that were losses and not live
• 2: Swing games (R2 v Fremantle, R16 v Bulldogs, personal opinion is they weren’t live but debatable whether I’m in the majority)

In 2025, it was…

• 12: Games that were either a win or live late on
• 11: Games that were losses and not live

Combine the above with going from three wins and 63.5 percent in 2024, to five and a half wins with 76.3 percent in 2025 suggests slight improvement. But similar issues that kept popping up from Round 1 to Round 24 this year highlights a bigger picture problem.

To take a proper step forward in 2026, there needs to be a system retool. Some of the positive glimpses come through an offensive and defensive method that isn’t sustainable long term unless there’s an all-star group of players. It’s why we see the feast (in small doses) or famine (in larger doses) cycles.

Until then, 2025 can only be viewed as a marginal step forward from a team perspective, at best. Which isn’t to downplay all the individual strides made across the field.

As far as North Melbourne posts look on The Shinboner from here until the 2026 pre-season, they’ll be on an ad-hoc basis.

Depending on list changes, trade, or free agency pickups, there could be multiple posts, just one catch all summation or a string of shorter rapid fire dot points.

Thanks to all who read the North match analysis posts throughout the season. They’ve been immensely helpful for me, working through what we’ve seen week to week. Hopefully they’ve been helpful for everyone else as well.