In recent memory, North Melbourne’s games v West Coast had largely been entertainingly close in a ‘movable object v resistible force’ type of way, or like a low-stakes accident unfolding in super slow motion.
Sunday at Optus Stadium was neither of those things. Instead we were all treated to a whirlwind of momentum swings, levers pulled left and right from the North coaching box to try and stop an Eagles side moving at the speed of light, and ultimately an afternoon which should crystalise exactly what’s needed heading into the club’s most important month in years.
There are an ungodly number of topics to get to. Let’s try our best to hit all of them.
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For those who missed the explanation last week, one more time to highlight why things this year will overall be a bit slower this year on The Shinboner:
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In last week’s post, there were cautionary notes on the style which North beat Port Adelaide. Although it looked fancy on the scoreboard and the stat sheet, North were essentially allowed to dictate and control tempo with uncontested ball, along with a lack of speed and movement from the Power.
With West Coast, in their home opener, looking to play a high-pressure, direct game, the match flow loomed as almost the complete opposite to what unfolded at Marvel Stadium in Round 1.
A quick surface level look at the stats shows as much:
| NMFC in 2026 | Kick to handball ratio | Marks | Total ground ball gets (both teams) | Total stoppages |
| Round 1 v PA | 1.68 | 119 | 149 | 87 |
| Round 2 v WCE | 1.08 | 67 | 198 | 102 |
From the outset, West Coast’s goals were obvious. They were aiming to come away with the four points from:
Offensively
– Winning the ground ball
– After those wins, moving forward as quick as possible, by any means possible
– That quick movement forward getting territory before North’s defence set
Defensively
– Keeping North in either small areas or straight lines
– Forcing them to move the ball through overloads in those above areas and/or lines
– Stopping them from finding space, whether over the top or wide, by any means necessary
That’s all oversimplified a touch for time reasons, and some of those dot points can be interpreted with the (derogatory) brackets right after it, but it’s not meant as such. Any team at the start of their build will naturally have a more basic style that layers are added to over time.
But before this blog turns into Swoop The Nest, or something along those lines, what it meant for North was they’d largely need to execute one of two ways to win – after making sure they were breaking even around contests at the very least:
1) Take West Coast up on their invitation on moving the ball through tight or straight areas
2) Widen the ground to break up West Coast’s preferred movement patterns, both offensively and defensively
Even early, when things were promising for North on the scoreboard, it was clear the game looked how West Coast would have liked. Five of North’s seven first quarter goals came from turnover, which can usually be interpreted as a good thing: Pressure! Tackling! Forced errors!
In reality North were largely capitalising on unforced Eagles errors, like this Tom McCarthy handball…
…or this Jobe Shanahan kick:
Meanwhile there were moments when West Coast turned it into a ground, smaller space game and there’d be glimpses of this – Eagles players in the vicinity of second and third contests much quicker than North’s:
Elsewhere in the first quarter Griffin Logue’s early thigh injury meant a reshuffle of roles. As far as could be told from broadcast view, the initial reshuffle meant:
– Luke McDonald playing as a pseudo key-back
– Colby McKercher to half-back (assuming he was originally slated to play the same role as last week)
– Jy Simpkin taking some of McKercher’s on-ball minutes
– Zane Duursma with a bit more wing time to cover for Simpkin’s change
There are more changes coming later, but for the time being we stop here.
Heading into the second quarter, although North had a more than handy lead, it was clear the game would swing on whether West Coast could cut out enough of their unforced errors. There were enough signs everything else was the way they had set up.
North had shown they were comfortable with the game flow the Eagles had established. Or, at the very least, unwilling to try and change it yet. Take your pick.
(There’s a line here about, ‘of course North should have been comfortable West Coast’s errors would continue, look at the last few years’. You can use that line, not me)
And then across the middle two quarters, West Coast had 25 more ground ball gets than North Melbourne.
To put into context how large a number that is, there were only 13 bigger differentials across entire games last year. The Eagles had it in two quarters, a complete massacre on the ground.
To delve into Swoop The Nest mode again briefly (callback!), the benefit of a simplified style is there’s little confusion on what everyone needs to do when up and running. In the Eagles’ case, to oversimplify a touch again for ease of explanation, it was:
– Get to contests, ideally with an outnumber on the ground
– Win contest
– Go straight out the front of said contest
– Move the ball forward as quickly as possible
– Long kicks deep
For example:
The middle two quarters were a snowball effect. The five dot points listed above can go horrifically wrong – quickly – if the team is losing contests. It can equally go fantastically well if it’s reinforced by positive results.
In this case it was the latter for West Coast because North simply couldn’t match their power running, amplified by the defensive style behind the ball. At this point we take a quick detour to the pre-season match sim at Casey Fields.
What I wrote at the time:
The two paragraphs most relevant to the West Coast game:
All these new rule tweaks – stand, stoppages, etc – promote a little more run, carry, and flowing ball movement. It means if the North first layer of defence can’t hold things up, suddenly opponents have more room than normal streaming forward to work in.
It basically comes down to a large amount of pressure on North’s on-ball defence to do the heavy lifting. This current setup behind the ball won’t be able to cover up many mistakes around the ball, regardless of personnel.
It allows the opposition forwards to dictate positioning a little more. The key position players have the option to pull deeper, opening space in front of them and lengthening the ground.
Or the smaller forward half players can come up to the front of contests easier, creating more room for them to turn and go, knowing they have the space to do so.
This clip, deliberately picked because it only ends in a direct turnover, is nevertheless an example of the process.
Hamish Davis is able to get to the front of a contest and after he wins possession he can just turn and go. The last frame before he kicks shows North players chasing forlornly.
It’s partly on the players not setting up correctly around a potential ball drop, but also not helped by the process behind it. Look at the space:
With the continual process of contest > ground ball > Eagles win > pinned in back half repeating, it became an episode of spin the wheel to see if anyone could provide the circuit breaker.
Already with changes in place after Logue’s injury, in the third quarter we saw McKercher with some on-ball time in the third quarter, but the Eagles largely ran straight past him. Simpkin’s time on-ball was equally ineffective. At one point Cam Zurhaar was even briefly up around stoppages on the wing directing traffic. Caleb Daniel went to half forward. It appeared Finn O’Sullivan spent some brief moments at half back, at least from what was visible.
This was just what could be seen on the broadcast view. There were undoubtedly a string of further tweaks and shifts which wasn’t visible on TV. Upstairs there was no acceptance or submission to what West Coast were doing, even with the slight handcuff from processes around and behind the ball.
At ground level though, there appeared to be little appetite to either try and rise to West Coast’s levels without possession, or attempt to change angles and tempo when in possession. It must again be emphasised this had its roots in West Coast playing really well, but from a North player point of view there were too many passengers or players having down days.
In the middle two quarters, from turnover North kicked a grand total of … zero points. That’s right, zero. A big 0. It was the direct result of everything we’ve covered bubbling into a big flashing inferno.
The unforced errors stopped from West Coast. Then West Coast started winning ground ball after ground ball, getting clean territory. North couldn’t go with them from contest to contest, meaning when they did get possession back it was usually in unthreatening areas as opposed to forcing forward half turnovers.
And the inability or unwillingness – again, take your pick – to change the flow when in possession meant North kept going to the same areas and getting rebuffed time and time again.
The last quarter, from a big picture point of view, was largely inconsequential. Understandably Eagles started to tire after running like madmen (complimentary) but had built enough of a gap that it didn’t matter in the end. Most gains North made should be viewed through that lens.
The last 10 minutes felt like stoppage time in a 1-0 soccer game as the ball bounced back and forth with most of the field hilariously out of position, individual roles and responsibilities sacrificed at the altar of belting the ball as long as possible.
Ultimately the key lesson from Sunday should be a renewed focus on figuring out how to either:
a) Go with teams who will look to play like West Coast with a high-contest/direct at speed double
b) Slow teams down who will look to play like West Coast
c) Improve the immediate around-ball and close behind-ball setup in quick games like this
d) Ideally all the above at once, but that’s unrealistic to expect from any team
A personal preference would be c) first because it’d reap the biggest spike, but a) or b) are probably more attainable in the short term.
What we saw trouble North against West Coast probably won’t be as big an issue in three of the next four weeks. Essendon, Carlton and Richmond, based on exposed evidence, won’t set the field up in the same way as the Eagles. Either offensively or defensively.
But in the long run there needs to be progress on a solution to these issues. Especially with the way the game is trending.