{"id":64806,"date":"2024-06-06T10:26:02","date_gmt":"2024-06-06T00:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/?p=64806"},"modified":"2024-06-06T10:43:16","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T00:43:16","slug":"why-is-clarko-at-north","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/2024\/06\/why-is-clarko-at-north\/","title":{"rendered":"Why is Clarko at North?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Billie Eilish has asked in the most overrated song in recent memory \u201cwhat was I made for?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Billie Eilish - What Was I Made For? (Official Music Video)\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cW8VLC9nnTo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>In the bye for his second season at North Melbourne, let\u2019s do what the AFL claims to want to avoid and try to judge intention: What is he at North Melbourne for?<\/p>\n<p>Is it to return them to the halcyon days of a deviant superstar who delivered premierships?<\/p>\n<p>Or was his hiring to make them relevant and set them up for the future?<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Just another day for Alastair Clarkson tbh..<\/p>\n<p>The little man needs another break. <\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s cooked. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gkc0WzAgtK\">https:\/\/t.co\/gkc0WzAgtK<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/f3e2c4Rgv0\">pic.twitter.com\/f3e2c4Rgv0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Footy Degenerate (@FootyIsMyJam) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FootyIsMyJam\/status\/1795727987356348509?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 29, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The latter is the more rational position.<\/p>\n<p>They should have known that adding a Clarkson was not going to make them instant contenders.<\/p>\n<p>Hiring him to win a premiership would be like putting on a fire-resistant suit after you\u2019ve burned yourself like you\u2019re the monk from Saigon.<\/p>\n<p>North Melbourne should have seen Clarkson more as a Paul Roos coaching Melbourne type figure.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Paul Roos spoke out on the Kangaroos head coach today.<\/p>\n<p>And Leigh Matthews didn&#39;t quite agree with his comments!<\/p>\n<p>Full story \ud83d\udc49 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/olMnkFQf9F\">https:\/\/t.co\/olMnkFQf9F<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/fp5KijYKz6\">pic.twitter.com\/fp5KijYKz6<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; 3AW Football (@3AWisfootball) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/3AWisfootball\/status\/1796462577415008479?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 31, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Of course, there are key differences between Roos and Clarkson, the most significant is how the coaches viewed themselves.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the same reason streaming companies keep giving blank cheques to big directors to make occasionally shit films like Napoleon.<\/p>\n<p>But that coach has to, therefore, be willing to hand over the reigns when his time is up, as Roos was.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s easy to forget how poor Melbourne was when Roos took over.<\/p>\n<p>From 2008 until Roos\u2019 appointment ahead of the 2014 season, Melbourne never finished higher than 12th.<\/p>\n<p>They finished bottom or second bottom in three of those seasons and were also been embroiled in a tanking scandal in 2009.<\/p>\n<p>The year before he took over was the fifth worst season for Melbourne since 1897.<\/p>\n<p>They were a basket case.<\/p>\n<p>Roos\u2019 job wasn\u2019t a football job, it was a reconstruction of a club job.<\/p>\n<p>Both parties knew that he wasn\u2019t long for the role, but they knew that his presence alone would be enough to build up some hope.<\/p>\n<p>Returning to Clarko, if premierships are the measure then there\u2019s no point asking how Clarkson is going.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019re better off going to Donald Trump for legal advice.<\/p>\n<p>What about if you look at him by the Roos standard?<\/p>\n<p>Firstly, like Roos at Melbourne, Clarkson\u2019s appointment at North Melbourne won them the offseason in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Normally I\u2019d trivialise winning an offseason, probably throw in an Essendon joke and move on, but for North, it was a big deal.<\/p>\n<p>It lent them legitimacy.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Alastair Clarkson Returns Home To North Melbourne | AFL | 10 News First\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6pjocdSko4s?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The issue is the rest.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>He effectively, with the benefit of hindsight, had a bake off for who would succeed him.<\/p>\n<p>Clarkson, on the other hand, signed a five year deal worth around $1million per season.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>He didn\u2019t talk premiership when he signed, but he did say \u201cit\u2019s [not] going to be a 10-year turnaround\u201d and signed the long-term contract.<\/p>\n<p>He wants to be there long-term.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019m aware.<\/p>\n<p>When Clarkson took a leave of absence last year, Brett Ratten filled in.<\/p>\n<p>Not a young coach that he had taken under his wing during his first season season, it wasn\u2019t someone new.<\/p>\n<p>It was his old mate from Hawthorn, who he knew wasn\u2019t a threat to his job long-term and is now gone.<\/p>\n<p>If Clarkson is having a bake off, then he\u2019s more Logan Roy than Paul Roos, and if he left a piece of paper that wasn\u2019t quite a will, it would probably say Leigh Adams with either an underline or a cross out.<\/p>\n<p>Clarkson seems to be operating with impunity, and he\u2019s getting stuck in his own freedom.<\/p>\n<p>He\u2019s like a great director who\u2019s given too much rope and too few notes, like Francis Ford Coppola with Megalopolis.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes you need someone in the room to tell that it\u2019s fucking crazy to make a movie where Adam Driver can just pause time.<\/p>\n<p>Clarkson has neither any guardrails nor heirs, he\u2019s set himself up to get maximum credit, but also take maximum blame if it goes wrong.<\/p>\n<p>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%.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&quot;At what point does Alastair Clarkson say, &#39;Actually this isn&#39;t working, we&#39;ve got to move in a new direction&#39;?&quot;<\/p>\n<p>Is Roos co-captain Luke McDonald&#39;s spot in the side safe? And the senior mids the club could target.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/9FootyFurnace?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#9FootyFurnace<\/a> | Live on 9Now \ud83d\udda5\ufe0f <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mwTsSv7KDu\">pic.twitter.com\/mwTsSv7KDu<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Footy on Nine (@FootyonNine) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FootyonNine\/status\/1784525370848686396?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 28, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s too soon to say they\u2019re going backwards, but if they\u2019re getting progress is very incremental.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t about Clarkson\u2019s behaviour, which I can\u2019t fathom caring about.<\/p>\n<p>Jy Simplin hasn\u2019t been the same since Jimmy Webster\u2019s hit, and Webster is as Clarkson described him for launching into a bump like he did.<\/p>\n<p>I was more excited that Clarkson must have been watching The Sopranos to have that word on the tip of his tongue.<\/p>\n<p>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\u2019ve had three draws this season.<\/p>\n<p>No, this is about intention.<\/p>\n<p>Why is Alastair Clarkson at North Melbourne?<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The coach reflects on the opportunities we created in the first half, and our fade-out in the second.<\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udfa5: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Fr0r7r3gUy\">https:\/\/t.co\/Fr0r7r3gUy<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Kangas?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#Kangas<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/K1Kn4wAhGa\">pic.twitter.com\/K1Kn4wAhGa<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; North Melbourne FC (@NMFCOfficial) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NMFCOfficial\/status\/1794286094730846500?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 25, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Clarkson seemed to think it was to win a premiership quickly when he signed, and I\u2019d be surprised if anything has changed now.<\/p>\n<p>North Melbourne may have agreed when they signed him, given the contract.<\/p>\n<p>But they have to change horses midstream and make Clarkson more Paul Roos and less Logan Roy, or risk being left in the lurch.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><b><i>Like what you read from our hard-hitting columnist?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><b><i>Follow\u00a0<\/i><\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/guywholikesspo1\"><b><i>@Guywholikessport<\/i><\/b><\/a><b><i>\u00a0on Twitter or check out his\u00a0<\/i><\/b><a href=\"https:\/\/guywholikessport.wixsite.com\/guywholikessport\"><b><i>FULL BLOG HERE\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":64809,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8298,344],"tags":[29,8614,5302,1329,8908,8260,812,3094],"hub_post_cat":[],"class_list":["post-64806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australian-rules","category-guywholikessport","category-sports","tag-afl","tag-afl-2024","tag-alastair-clarkson","tag-australian-rules","tag-footy","tag-guywholikessport","tag-north-melbourne","tag-opinion"],"acf":{"md_tip_date":null,"md_tip_date_end":null,"md_market_url":"","tip_date":"06\/06\/2024","event_country":"Australia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64806"},{"taxonomy":"hub_post_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.neds.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hub_post_cat?post=64806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}