North Melbourne already has four wins this season, including two in a row heading into another Tasmanian civil war, this time with Hawthorn rather than over a stadium.
The last time they won four games in a season was 2021, so going by wins and losses, this year is already a success.
But looking under the hood, I have some worries about the way North Melbourne has allocated its resources.
It feels like a list and a game style – replete with midfielders and contest beasts – that is not suited for the modern game that prioritises damage, pace, and space.
It feels like what would have happened if The Martian had come out last month.
The Martian is a distinctly Obama-era movie where China, Russia, and America all came together to get Matt Damon out of space.
Do you reckon anyone would buy those three working together for the greater good today?
North’s build similarly feels of a different time.
It’s not like Clarkson and the Roos have no plan, however.
Since 2021, North have drafted the following midfield or midfield potential players with top 30 picks: Horne-Francis, Sheezel, Wardlaw, George, McKercher, and O’Sullivan.
Add guys like LDU, Powell, Simpkin, Scott, and Xerri and you can see a clear priority.
They’re following the Bulldogs model of high-skill, high-volume ball winners blanketing the ground and dominating contest.
If that’s the goal, it’s working.
Over the last five games, North is top-five at getting first possession, total clearances, contested ball, and scores from stoppage.
Against Carlton, they were dynamic when it came to getting the ball from inside stoppage to out with inside beasts like LDU feeding the McKercher-types who provided juice and spread to worry the Blues.
But they have robbed Peter to pay the midfield, which is to say they haven’t spent huge capital at either end of the ground.
Since 2021, the only key position talent they have drafted with a top 30 pick are Zane Duursma, Will Dawson, and Matt Whitlock.
It’s almost the opposite to Richmond’s rebuild. The Tigers drafted just one pure midfielder in Josh Smilie last year, focusing on key position talent and the mid/forward players that are so crucial to the modern game.
Despite that, North’s forward line built around Nick Larkey is relatively strong on a personnel level because of good development rather than investment.
Paul Curtis is pushing for All-Australian while Cam Zurhaar is having a career-best year.
Alongside them, Jack Darling has been everything they could have hoped for, and Jacob Konstanty has been a solid pressure forward.
Over the last five games, North has been a relatively efficient forward line, kicking a goal from about 23% of their inside 50s – seventh in footy.
Though part of that is that the ball doesn’t spend much time inside 50.
Relatedly, they’ve also been a relatively okay territory team.
They’re 15th in time in front half over the last five games at 47%.
That’s bad, but if they retain that for the season, that will be the best they have been at that stat since at least 2021.
They’re similarly placed near, though not at the bottom for stopping transition.
Again, that is progress.
However, neither seems to be the priority based on the way North sets up.
The backline is a different conversation.
North’s key back posts against Carlton were filled admirably by Toby Pink, who tries hard but isn’t overly talented despite giving Charlie Curnow a bath, and Griffin Logue who is talented but doesn’t try that hard.
Man for man, they are much less talented than the forward line. The fact that the defence has held up as well as it has is more a question of structure than coaching, in the inverse way to the forward line.
The bigger issue is the way the ball moves out of their back line.
Again, it feels of a different time.
They are so risk averse leaving their back half.
When the Roos do run, they look dangerous and athletic which should be the goal with a team of midfielders. But they do it all too seldom.
That risk-aversion kills them as the Roos are among the least threatening kicking teams in the AFL by threat rating.
It’d be like if Jackson Lamb refused to use his Slow Horses as bait.
They’re robbing themselves of what should be a strength.
Caleb Daniel is the only Kangaroo with a 007-style licence to take risks and he’s been closer to Johnny English this year, having his worst disposal-to-turnover ratio season since 2019.
Daniel was supposed to be improved transition in a can, but one many can only do so much. Especially with so little overlap run and a general aversion to playing on unless the game is going perfectly.
Even with Daniel, North is still the league’s worst transition team.
So, North has prioritised contest and midfield depth above all else.
That’s fine, but a decade of stats tells us that, to win at the highest level, those contest numbers aren’t the most important focus areas.
The key things are territory, transition, and stopping transition.
Brisbane’s contest and clearance dominance shows that the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive, but you have to be good at territory and transition.
Maybe North expects footy to go back to the future and become a contest game.
They might even be right, there have been 97 ruck contests per game this year, which would be the most since 2015.
But if you expect the priorities of modern footy to remain substantially the same, North needs to do it like Brisbane is currently doing it.
Maybe they can.
After all Fagan is a Clarkson disciple.
But it’s a hard way to live, especially if Harris Andrews doesn’t walk through the door at Arden Street.