Latest Posts: NMFC

A win. It had been a long time. 154 days to be exact, if Google’s count is to be believed.

“Cunners needs some help setting up his social media.” “What?”

The main focus of the last four games is what North are setting up to do while in possession.

I’ve been tossing this topic around in my head for most of the season, debating the right time to dive into Will Phillips’ progress.

The eagle eyed will notice today’s title is much the same as a fortnight ago against Adelaide, and for good reason.

Without question, Sunday was a day where North Melbourne’s midfielders were taken to the cleaners.

At times on Saturday afternoon, I couldn’t help but think back to Round 9, 2020.

Resuming after a well-earned week off, there are nine games left for North Melbourne to collect valuable data

It was a strange game in many respects, but today’s post will touch on two topics…

For the fourth week running, North Melbourne turned in a performance with promising signs before falling short of the ultimate prize.

After a promising three-week spell, it feels like the best time to open the mailbag for 2023.

Is it wrong to enjoy a one-goal loss that much?

When comparing top sides with ones on the lower rungs, some differences are obvious.

Next year my Supercoach side will be named 76th Interchange.

Explaining a key difference between good sides and … not so good sides: how to block exits.

That wasn’t exactly one for the scrapbook.

Really, how much can you say about a game like that?

Right from the outset, it looked like a flat North Melbourne outfit on the Gold Coast.

Sometimes these match analysis pieces jump around from topic to topic, and sometimes they go in-depth on multiple topics.

At the moment, every North Melbourne game feels like information overload.

A month into the season feels like enough time for some trends to be established.

For the second year in a row, North Melbourne went into a game against Carlton missing their best two key defenders.

Unfortunately it might be time to reconsider those Grand Final tickets.

It was the corresponding match last year when I first started thinking things were beyond repair.

When there’s a North Melbourne win like Saturday’s against West Coast, there tends to be plenty left on the cutting room floor.

Isn’t it funny how two early season wins against West Coast can bring such contrasting reactions?

While everyone is making ladder predictions, I’m taking the easy way out and grouping teams into tiers.

Here are my five things I’m looking for from North Melbourne in 2023, with the usual disclaimer this goes beyond wins and losses.

Welcome to one of my favourite things to do every year, with this edition exclusive to $10 Patrons.

The final step of North Melbourne’s preseason meant one more chance to collect intel ahead of a winnable season opener.

Welcome to the second annual AFL continuity rankings; figuring out which teams carry over the most (and least) minutes from their 2022 side into 2023.

Today’s topics: competence from North Melbourne, Tom Mitchell at Collingwood, figuring out Brisbane’s back seven, and a handful of mini points.

North Melbourne’s draft assistance has been used, returning Fremantle’s Griffin Logue and Darcy Tucker.

The actual season has finished for North Melbourne, and now it’s time for the silly season. Before that begins though…

On Saturday at Adelaide Oval, football felt both unimportant and extremely important, all at the same time.

Coming out of North Melbourne’s loss, the mainstream talking point was Jaidyn Stephenson turning his back on the football – twice.

Today’s extra focus can only be on one match: the Friday night blockbuster to kick off the round at the MCG.

Originally this was going to be a relatively straight-forward review piece, until it started taking a different path down the road of development.

Somehow we’re about to start the final month of the home and away season.

Every so often over the course of a season, it gets to the point where I have a bunch of stats and trends which don’t fit into a piece.

Defending at Blundstone Arena is a unique challenge – especially when it’s windy.

It’s an important weekend for both ends of the top eight.

According to the AFL rule book, ‘the winner of a Match of Australian Football is the Team which has scored, in accordance with these Laws, the greater number of points at the conclusion of the Match’.

We’re back to the regular Friday-Sunday schedule, which means normal service resumes in What To Watch For.

It’s a horrible feeling when you’re in a job you value, and you feel like it’s about to end badly.

Saturday provided the complete opposite of what we’ve seen from North Melbourne all year.

As teams start to play each other for the second time in 2022, it provides the perfect opportunity to see how they’ve grown during the year.

Long-term readers will remember this concept from last year, and today we’re going to dig deeper into team-by-team comparisons.

Well … where do we begin?

After a predictable match to open proceedings, focus turns to the remaining eight games of Round 16.

A theory can – and often does – sound great on paper.

Allow me to be the 10,000th person to excitedly proclaim how much I’m looking forward to this round.

The third and final part of the bye period Notebook has arrived.

Considering the final margin was 49 points, it feels strange to start by commending North Melbourne’s effort.

The afternoon started with so much promise.

For the next three rounds, there are no overlapping games. For better or worse, everything has the AFL world’s undivided attention.

In recent weeks, posts have usually focused on big-picture takeaways and items to build on in the future. Today’s a little bit different because it’s purely about single-game decisions.

At the end of this weekend we’ll be halfway through the home and away season. Unbelievable.

There’s a first time for everything, and today is The Shinboner’s inaugural North Melbourne mailbag.

Two weeks ago, I delved deep into my worries with North Melbourne’s ball movement. Against Melbourne, there appeared to be a few adjustments and the results looked much better to the eye.

There are some tantalising matchups this weekend.

In the absence of Jy Simpkin, Jason Horne-Francis, and Hugh Greenwood, it was a different looking North Melbourne midfield on Saturday.

We’re back for another round, and the stat packs are here to stay.

What if I told you North Melbourne are on pace to become the worst offensive team in the 21st century?

As a teenager, I spent plenty of winter Saturday afternoons at Vermont Reserve, watching the Eagles kick goal after goal and notch win after win.

It’s something a little different in this week’s What To Watch For.

What a difficult game to form a conclusive opinion on.

North Melbourne’s 60-point loss to Geelong brought a number of talking points, but today’s post is going to be streamlined.

If you know what to look for and what translates to AFL football, the VFL is an excellent place to fast track knowledge and identify trends before most.

Today’s post is going to focus on a common theme in this matchup, but so rarely do we get two complete opposite quarters to illustrate several key points.

The point of this story is to illustrate how important free-to-air games are for North Melbourne…

There is a hell of a lot to talk about today, thankfully much more positive than last week.

The general tone for the first two-thirds of this post may not match the mood in the outer, so let’s start with an explanation for why.

Walking into Marvel Stadium on Sunday, I had flashbacks to Round 10, 2016 v Essendon.

Round 2’s ‘What To Watch For’, exclusive for $7.50 & $10 Patrons.

Just a little bit to cover off today…

Why sort teams into tiers and not a ladder like normal people? Well, two reasons…

Before the first bounce on Sunday it’s important to set a bar for what I’ll be expecting from 2022.

The pre-season has been a valuable learning tool to hit Round 1 v Hawthorn running.

At this time of the year, with season previews popping up left, right and centre, there tends to be a few trusty cliches involved.

For a while I’ve been trying to figure out how to create as many impartial, simple-to-understand tools when attempting to analyse an AFL list. Things that you can look at and instantly glean unbiased knowledge from.

In pre-season, it was termed as a year of discovery. Now we’re at the end of it – from an on-field perspective at least – what have North Melbourne come away with?

So, North Melbourne have a wooden spoon for the first time since 1972. And everyone will react differently, but mine is a world apart from 2017 and 2020 where finishing bottom was a live possibility at the start of the last round.

When Josh Kelly’s eight-year extension at GWS was announced on Tuesday evening, my instinctive reaction was ‘happy with that’. That was immediately followed by something along the lines of, ‘am I insane being happy with Josh Kelly not at North Melbourne?’

A fortnight ago the match post was comparing this year’s games against the Bulldogs, and today’s will be much the same with Essendon with a near-exclusive focus on the first half.

For North Melbourne to go to Perth with a clear plan, withstand a barrage, execute down to a tee and earn the four points is an enormous tick in a year which had a lot of small tickets up until this point.

Sunday evening marked the first time North had played an opponent twice at the same venue under David Noble, making it another important step in the process of learning about the team.

A much deserved win is just reward for the constant improvement we’re seeing from North Melbourne week on week.

Luke McDonald’s return to action was interestingly marked by a new role on the wing. David Noble’s post-match comments on it revealed some fascinating possibilities.

A largely uneventful afternoon at Hobart, only featuring North Melbourne jumping out to a five-goal lead at three quarter time, getting reeled back in, plenty of notable talking points from siren to siren and it all ending with North’s first draw since Round 16, 2009 … actually, maybe there’s a fair bit to talk about.

At the halfway point of North Melbourne’s season, it feels like a natural time to reset and reflect on what we’ve learned so far.

For the game which marked the halfway point of 2021, a focus on three topics – Bailey Scott’s role, Tom Campbell v Tristan Xerri, and what the forward setup could (or should) look like down the road.

How do you defend against fast play? That was the task which confronted North Melbourne on Sunday, and one they ultimately failed on route to a 72-point loss against Essendon.

Forgive me if I’m a little bit rusty today, I looked up the manual on how to write about a North Melbourne win and it had been so long all the ink had faded out.

After the first player progress report a few weeks ago proved to be popular, and given the requests for individuals since, it’s now going to become a monthly thing for the rest of the season.

Although wind in Hobart makes for an exponentially funnier game, from a long-term development perspective it was great for it to take a rare Sunday off.

Today’s post is all about midfield structure; unfortunately one which broke down far too often for North Melbourne against Fremantle around stoppages and contests.

A change of pace today, with the Round 5 post focusing on a handful of individuals and their progress…

It’s fair to say coach David Noble is firmly in experimental mode, and will be for some time yet. On Sunday we saw the newest lever pulled.

Where to start? The short version is all the negative parts of the first two weeks coalesced into an unstoppable snowball. The long version … well. Here we go.