Just a little bit has happened since the end of North Melbourne’s 2020 campaign. Coach change, significant list changes, essentially a whole remodel.

With a remarkable 11 delistings, a quarter of North’s list disappeared in one fell swoop. To cut this deep, this early appears to mean plenty more wheeling and dealing to come.

Throughout North Melbourne’s last month, the common thread – apart from four losses – has been ball movement. Or to be more accurate, the lack of.

The fun part about the early stages of AFLW is watching how the on-field product evolves from infancy to fully rounded competition.

With two Marsh Series clashes and one scratch match in the books, it’s time to take stock and look ahead to North Melbourne’s season opener against St Kilda at Marvel Stadium on March 21.

While most of the fanfare from North fans about the appointment will surround ‘bringing a North person back’, I’m most enthused about the move for a simple reason: Rawlings’ track record.

10 years. 211 matches. Four finals series. Two preliminary finals. The Brad Scott era at North Melbourne has ended to a decidedly mixed reaction.

Should this list have been a top two or top four threat in 2019? We can all agree that’s wishful thinking. But I’d imagine most of us can also agree it should be eons better than 1-5, with a percentage of less than 70. 69.9 to be exact. Not nice.

Let me get the obvious out of the way first – I’m just as surprised as anyone that Paul Ahern wasn’t picked.

It’s that time of year again – plan the away trips, block out the days in the calendar – the 2019 fixture is here.