Why is Clarko at North?

Why is Clarko at North?

GuyWhoLikesSport

Billie Eilish has asked in the most overrated song in recent memory “what was I made for?”

I have listened to that song so many times on the radio and in Barbie that I have got to the point of applying it to Alastair Clarkson.

In the bye for his second season at North Melbourne, let’s do what the AFL claims to want to avoid and try to judge intention: What is he at North Melbourne for?

Is it to return them to the halcyon days of a deviant superstar who delivered premierships?

Or was his hiring to make them relevant and set them up for the future?

The latter is the more rational position.

They should have known that adding a Clarkson was not going to make them instant contenders.

Hiring him to win a premiership would be like putting on a fire-resistant suit after you’ve burned yourself like you’re the monk from Saigon.

North Melbourne should have seen Clarkson more as a Paul Roos coaching Melbourne type figure.

Of course, there are key differences between Roos and Clarkson, the most significant is how the coaches viewed themselves.

Roos retired from footy after the 2010 season and knew he was a bridge. Clarkson was pushed out of footy after 2021 and views himself as both bridge and destination.

But they should be considered similarly, as coaches held in such high esteem at the time of their hiring that they lend credence to their new club just by putting on the polo.

It’s the same reason streaming companies keep giving blank cheques to big directors to make occasionally shit films like Napoleon.

But that coach has to, therefore, be willing to hand over the reigns when his time is up, as Roos was.

It’s easy to forget how poor Melbourne was when Roos took over.

From 2008 until Roos’ appointment ahead of the 2014 season, Melbourne never finished higher than 12th.

They finished bottom or second bottom in three of those seasons and were also been embroiled in a tanking scandal in 2009.

The year before he took over was the fifth worst season for Melbourne since 1897.

They were a basket case.

Roos’ job wasn’t a football job, it was a reconstruction of a club job.

Both parties knew that he wasn’t long for the role, but they knew that his presence alone would be enough to build up some hope.

Returning to Clarko, if premierships are the measure then there’s no point asking how Clarkson is going.

You’re better off going to Donald Trump for legal advice.

What about if you look at him by the Roos standard?

Firstly, like Roos at Melbourne, Clarkson’s appointment at North Melbourne won them the offseason in 2023.

Normally I’d trivialise winning an offseason, probably throw in an Essendon joke and move on, but for North, it was a big deal.

It lent them legitimacy.

The issue is the rest.

Paul Roos got to Melbourne and immediately rebuilt his coaching staff, signing just a two year deal with an option for a third, and empowering younger assistants around him.

He effectively, with the benefit of hindsight, had a bake off for who would succeed him.

Clarkson, on the other hand, signed a five year deal worth around $1million per season.

Without knowing literally anything about the soft cap other than the fact that it exists, he must be a burden on it especially for a poor club like North Melbourne and that must be affecting the quality of people the club can afford to put around him.

He didn’t talk premiership when he signed, but he did say “it’s [not] going to be a 10-year turnaround” and signed the long-term contract.

He wants to be there long-term.

I think he thought that he was the fire-resistant suit, and North Melbourne were just slightly charred, he felt, clearly, that he alone could fix North Melbourne and return them to relevance.

It has shown in the coaches around him, nobody on the coaching staff that have been touted as future head coaches as far as I’m aware.

When Clarkson took a leave of absence last year, Brett Ratten filled in.

Not a young coach that he had taken under his wing during his first season season, it wasn’t someone new.

It was his old mate from Hawthorn, who he knew wasn’t a threat to his job long-term and is now gone.

If Clarkson is having a bake off, then he’s more Logan Roy than Paul Roos, and if he left a piece of paper that wasn’t quite a will, it would probably say Leigh Adams with either an underline or a cross out.

Clarkson seems to be operating with impunity, and he’s getting stuck in his own freedom.

He’s like a great director who’s given too much rope and too few notes, like Francis Ford Coppola with Megalopolis.

Sometimes you need someone in the room to tell that it’s fucking crazy to make a movie where Adam Driver can just pause time.

Clarkson has neither any guardrails nor heirs, he’s set himself up to get maximum credit, but also take maximum blame if it goes wrong.

And it is going wrong, North Melbourne is 0-11 with a percentage of 56%, after a year where they finished 3-20 with a percentage of 71%.

It’s too soon to say they’re going backwards, but if they’re getting progress is very incremental.

This isn’t about Clarkson’s behaviour, which I can’t fathom caring about.

Jy Simplin hasn’t been the same since Jimmy Webster’s hit, and Webster is as Clarkson described him for launching into a bump like he did.

I was more excited that Clarkson must have been watching The Sopranos to have that word on the tip of his tongue.

Similarly, any furore over Clarkson swearing on the sideline is one of the more manufactured conversations I have ever heard in football media, and we’ve had three draws this season.

No, this is about intention.

Why is Alastair Clarkson at North Melbourne?

Clarkson seemed to think it was to win a premiership quickly when he signed, and I’d be surprised if anything has changed now.

North Melbourne may have agreed when they signed him, given the contract.

But they have to change horses midstream and make Clarkson more Paul Roos and less Logan Roy, or risk being left in the lurch.

 

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