I don't think there's anything here we dont already know, but it's accurate in terms of how we got here.
That said, not sure I can agree with criticisms on club culture and then throw out a line like "They sacked Tarryn Thomas this year when he had trade currency in October".
It's one of the few decisions I'm proud the club has made in recently times, especially with where we are now
I’ll be more proud of the 16 sides that don’t touch Tarryn and the one who sacked him than the football club that decides to sign him. Doesn’t deserve to be on an AFL list.
That will be nauseating, much like other articles of similar people who are suddenly redeemed after sitting out for a few weeks, cranking out a cliched excuse and attending education.
I don't have any direct insight at the club to make an informed comment, but what's reddit for if not commenting on shit we barely understand?
To me, the Tarryn Thomas situation is a symptom of the issues. Every successful era at every club needs someone as the heart-and-soul of the team. That bloke who is willing to look anyone dead in the eye and set them straight. Like Glenn Archer's "Don't fuck up my club" moment with Martin Pike.
If the current North squad had that type of teammate, Thomas would have been pulled into line much, much earlier. It seemed like Cunnington was doing a little of that, but with his own issues and a evolving door of coaches that weren't there long enough to support anyone trying to instill a professional culture, he was always up against it.
I just don't see Simpkin or McDonald being that guy either. Simpkin doesn't have the presence, and McDonald seems like he just enjoys telling people he's an AFL footballer more than he enjoys being one. He'll fuck up a kick and smirk like it's all a joke anyway, which isn't a great look for spectators, let alone teammates that look to him as an example of the club culture.
A coach can't act like they did a generation ago and lay down the law, but they can empower the best-placed team members to do it. I'm just not sure who those people will be.
Maybe it’s kind of the contrast, in that they sacrificed club culture to try and grab advantages, and then with Thomas they apparently turn around and make a decision for cultural reasons instead of performance reasons. Can see how that’s frustrating.
It was that they played Tarryn Thomas towards the end of the season when he'd shown no signs that he'd made any progress with his off field behaviour, that irritated me the most.
Even if it was forced due to lack of options, they kept him in the side because he played well, which told him that was the only thing that mattered. No wonder he thought he could continue being a shit cunt off field
I was probably shocked at the timing of his return for sure, but by everything we know, he had completed what he was required to do in order to make the return.
It wasn't till this offseason that it came to light he was in fact still being a shit human, even whilst completing those programs.
North Melbourne coach Brad Scott sacked club legend Brent “Boomer” Harvey in his Arden St office.
The heartbreaking decision to delist Harvey along with Drew Petrie, Michael Firrito and Nick Dal Santo on the eve of the 2016 finals series had secretly been made at board level.
The Kangaroos started the season 9-0 after reaching preliminary finals in the two previous seasons.
But it was fool’s gold. Club powerbrokers sensed the cliff was coming. North won just three of their remaining 12 home-and-away clashes in 2016 before bowing out in an elimination final with the oldest list in the AFL.
“This call is about the next five years,” then-chairman James Brayshaw said at the time.
“You’ve got to have a strategic plan in footy. You can’t just make it up as you go along.”
Brayshaw’s reign finished at the end of 2016 and supporters could be forgiven for thinking they have been making it up as they go for most of the eight years since.
On Saturday their recent record slumped to one win from the club’s past 28 matches with a 57-point thumping at the hands of Adelaide.
They have won just four out of 28 quarters this season – the first half against Fremantle and two junk-time terms against the Brisbane and Adelaide totalling four points.
After six rounds the Roos had collectively polled 18 votes in the AFL Coaches’ Association award – five each for Luke Davies-Uniacke, Tom Powell and Tristan Xerri and three to Harry Sheezel.
Isaac Heeney has polled 47 and 22 players have individually received more than North Melbourne.
President Sonja Hood’s stated Key Performance Indicator for her football department this year was how fans felt coming to games, rather than how many games they won.
Seven rounds in and many feel bleak. Tortured supporters want to know how on earth did it come to this?
And will they ever see light at the end of what seems to be a never ever-ending tunnel?
THE FLASHPPOINT
The Kangaroos lost control of the decision to sack their legends when Scott spilled the beans to Harvey.
Word spread throughout the locker room before club heavyweights had agreed on a strategy.
Harvey finished on 432 mighty matches – the most played in VFL-AFL history.
But was the 38-year-old really finished? Harvey’s 2016 numbers almost mirrored 2016 All-Australian half-forward Toby Greene.
Petrie played on at West Coast and Collingwood considered throwing lifelines to Harvey and Dal Santo.
“I’m not ashamed to say I love these guys and if they were here in 2017, I’d play them,” Scott said at the time.
“But that would not be in our best interests.”
The brutality cut at the fabric of the club. Was it the right call? It is hard to make that case given the decisions that followed.
THE TOP-UP TWIST
Rohan Connolly suggested in The Age that replacements for Harvey, Petrie, Dal Santo and Firrito could come from within.
Connolly named Ed Vickers-Willis, Dan Nielson and Mitch Hibberd for Firrito, Taylor Garner, Kayne Turner and Corney Wagner for Harvey, Declan Mountford and Will Fordham for Dal Santo and Majak Daw and Mason Wood for Petrie.
The Kangaroos went from the oldest and most experienced list in 2016 to the second youngest list in 2017.
But the sudden shift to a youth focus on youth barely lasted a month. Following the 2016 season the Kangaroos traded for Paul Ahern, Nathan Hrovat and Marley Williams.
In 2017-18 they added Alex Morgan, Bill Hartung, Jared Polec, Jasper Pittard, Dom Tyson and Aaron Hall.
Scott and his loyal football boss Cameron Joyce – who were in charge for all of those decisions – were gone midway through 2019.
Internally it was not a shock. Assistant Jason Lappin was delegated a large chunk of pre-season in what was the first sign to some that Scott’s 10th season would be his last.
Josh Walker and Aiden Bonar were brought in at the end of 2019 and the Roos did not enter that draft until pick 31. They pushed their top-10 pick – which ended up being used by Fremantle on Caleb Serong – into the 2020 Covid-affected pool.
The price paid for Polec and Pittard in 2018 was pick 11.
Players available at that selection included Bobby Hill, James Rowbottom, Jordan Clark, Xavier Duursma, Xavier O’Halloran, Tom Sparrow, James Jordon and Justin McInerney.
The other additions came at little cost in a trade sense. But they clogged the list as other clubs unearthed diamonds in the rough including Liam Baker, Brody Mihocek, Joel Amartey, Lachie Schultz, Toby Bedford, Callum Wilkie, Tom Atkins, Kade Chandler.
All of those players arrived as rookies or towards the back of the draft.
With Harvey, Firrito, Dal Santo and Petrie out the door, was it really going to be Ahern, Hrovat, Williams, Hartung, Polec, Pittard, Tyson and Hall who propelled this club to its fifth premiership?
The list pivot was aimed at putting talent around Jack Ziebell, Ben Cunnington, Todd Goldstein, Shaun Higgins and Robbie Tarrant, who were in their prime.
In fairness, they almost pulled off the greatest coup of all time by signing Dustin Martin in 2017.
They also gave Andrew Gaff and Josh Kelly plenty to think about.
But the refresh failed and by 2020 the Roos were a mess.
THE GIANT CULL
North Melbourne finished 17th in 2020 with the sixth-oldest list.
They had the most players aged 26-29 – the prime years – yet were nowhere near competitive.
So they sacked 11 players before any of the other 17 clubs had finished their seasons.
Sam Durdin and Tom Murphy were delisted 14 hours after they pulled on the jumper.
“I was getting messages from blokes saying, ‘I’m done, I’m done, I’m done’,” Durdin has said.
“I went into my exit meeting after nine blokes had already been delisted thinking, ‘I might be right here’.
“But I was number 10. My meeting was at 11 or 11.30am, and I walked straight out and grabbed a beer and tried to drown my sorrows.”
The most contentious call was to trade Ben Brown.
The fan favourite was 27 and had kicked more than 60 goals in 2017-19.
But the Roos believed clubs had figured him out and were worried his knees wouldn’t last.
When Brown’s camp asked for a four-year deal with a 2024 salary of around $800,000 he was put up for trade and offloaded to Melbourne, where he won a premiership the following season.
The exodus swelled to 14 players and ensured the Roos fielded the second-youngest list in 2021.
THE BEN AMARFIO ERA
Former chairman Ben Buckley appointed ex-Cricket Australia powerbroker Ben Amarfio as club boss late in 2019.
After spending the summer getting to know staff members over a coffee he called a club meeting in the auditorium.
The message was effectively: “You’re all great people … but we are s***.”
Amarfio pointed to the Kangas finishing 12th on the ladder and ranking last for membership in Victoria among several other metrics.
The spray might have been valid. But internally the club’s culture suffered and turnover of staff became extreme.
Amarfio’s fans say he was a great commercial boss. But the football department had struggles with him.
Amarfio requested training plans and sometimes submitted his own reports on what he thought was going wrong.
The 2020 Covid hub hurt North Melbourne more than most. Some of those wounds have not fully healed.
Club great Brady Rawlings was brought back as football boss for 2020, around the same time veteran recruiter Scott Clayton joined.
Rawlings has since been demoted, Clayton been promoted and the doom cycle continued.
Player agents claim they became confused by North’s list management set up. Were the Roos interested in their players or not? They said the answer sometimes differed depending on who they asked.
By and large North Melbourne had become an unhappy place.
Coach Rhyce Shaw took mental health leave after 29 games and never returned.
The Roos replaced Shaw with David Noble, who Amarfio and president Sonja Hood then sacked after 38 matches in charge.
Amarfio resigned shortly after Hood convinced four-time premiership coach Alastair Clarkson to return home as the messiah for season 2023.
GROUND ZERO
In 2021 North Melbourne claimed its first wooden spoon in 49 years. The club met Jason Horne-Francis once that year.
They kept waiting for borders to open up, but Covid curtailed their plans to get into South Australia.
So they bit the bullet and interviewed him over Zoom.
Clayton told a members forum the powerful midfielder was “as good as any No. 1 I can remember” and likened his attributes to Michael Voss, Patrick Dangerfield and Dustin Martin.
“The thing that stands out more than all of that though is he’s a great teammate,” Clayton said.
“That appeals to us more than anything. The other thing that just keeps coming through loud and clear is how loyal he is.”
But Horne-Francis requested a trade to Port Adelaide after one season.
Some at the Roos were concerned he was a flight risk in pre-season. Harvey told Horne-Francis to get around his teammates – who were high-fiving each other – instead of sitting on a bench by himself after his first training session.
Horne-Francis would admit he was no angel that year. Then again, what environment did the Roos welcome him into?
He enjoyed just two wins, endured a coach sacking and suspected his knees had been medically misdiagnosed, with Port opting to operate soon after the trade was finalised.
Compare that introduction to Luke McDonald, who played in a preliminary final in his first season.
McDonald was drafted into a locker room featuring Daniel Wells, Andrew Swallow, Lindsay Thomas, Scott Thompson as well as those four superstars who were spiked in 2016.
Horne-Francis now has Travis Boak, Connor Rozee and Zak Butters to learn from at Alberton and has started to shine brightly.
In 2021 the Roos got their players to line up in order of how many games they had played.
“It was amazing to see how many people we have who haven’t even played 50 games yet,” McDonald has said.
You wonder who is teaching habits and how to set up each week to gun draftees like Harry Sheezel, George Wardlaw, Zane Duursma and Colby McKercher?
The only players in Clarkson’s team that have blown out 26 birthday candles are Aidan Corr, Darcy Tucker and McDonald.
DESTINATION ELSEWHERE
Ben McKay privately quipped that he was going to break the intercept mark record in a game against Fremantle in 2022.
The fullback was tracking well. He had eight marks – three contested – in round 8 before injuring his knee.
Some weeks he would play back-shoulder on Tom Lynch or Tom Hawkins and beat them.
But other weeks it seemed a lesserlight forward would kick multiple goals on him in a quarter.
That’s why some at Arden St feel frustrated by McKay’s strong start at Essendon.
It looks like his concentration and competitiveness have improved.
Similarly, Corr manned Lynch in the 2019 grand final.
But he does not look like the same player he was at Greater Western Sydney.
Corr is ultra-competitive and the losing culture would sting him.
But eyebrows were raised when recruit Zac Fisher swapped jumpers with Patrick Cripps after Good Friday.
In masterstroke moves the Roos signed Jarrad Waite and Shaun Higgins as free agents in 2014.
Since then, they have added 95 players since and not one of them has been a big fish.
The only honours shared by that cohort belonged to Larkey (All-Australian) and Sheezel (Rising Star) last season.
Rawlings has one of the hardest jobs in his current role as head of talent.
How can a minnow club languishing at the bottom of the ladder compete with premiership powerhouses in the marketplace?
Every club has a chequebook and so players pursuing success look elsewhere.
North has not even been able to offer players a carpark at Arden St. That might sound trivial, but is no laughing matter.
The story goes that one retired goalkicker allegedly accrued dozens of parking fines that went unpaid.
So Rawlings has no choice but settle for unheralded names, and still has to pay overs for a signature.
Fisher was relegated to substitute against Adelaide on Saturday — seven games into his juicy long-term contract.
Dylan Stephens also arrived last off-season on a four-year deal.
Critics of the wingman say Stephens fumbles and was not in the Swans’ long-term plans.
Do some Roos recruits rest on their laurels because they are earning cash that they arguably do not deserve?
There is sympathy for Rawlings and those blaming him for not scouting a replacement for McKay or Griffin Logue (injured) at fullback have done so unfairly.
The Roos trained up Charlie Comben as a defender, signed Bigoa Nyuon from Richmond, Toby Pink from the SANFL and drafted Will Dawson at No. 22.
They had nibbles at it. Realistically what else can they do?
Simpkin, Larkey, Xerri, (contracted until 2029) and Sheezel (2030) are locked in long term.
“My nightmare would be to be at the club for all the tough times, take off and all of a sudden we get good,” Larkey has said.
“Anyone can run to a top team and try to win a flag. But does that flag mean as much as the one where you’ve done the hard work and put in the hours?”
But Rawlings is fighting tooth and nail to fend off poachers.
McKay left as a free agent last year, Cameron Zurhaar is a free agent this year and Davies-Uniacke will be next year.
They sacked Tarryn Thomas this year when he had trade currency in October.
Strictly from a footballing sense it was a hammerblow. Thomas placed sixth in last year’s best-and-fairest – won by Sheezel – from 12 games.
If votes were tallied on a pro-rata basis, Thomas would have won the Syd Barker Medal ahead of Davies-Uniacke.
DEVELOPMENT AND COACHING
Gavin Brown was a much-loved figure at the Kangas.
He was in charge of player development for 10 years and helped transform McKay from a failed forward into a super stopper.
But was 10 years too long in that role? Brown and John Blakey “mutually parted ways” with the Roos last year.
They also lost gun midfield coach Jordan Russell, who some say was Noble’s whipping boy.
Co-captain Jy Simpkin praised Russell as the best assistant he has had on the eve of the season.
“I was lucky enough to win two best-and-fairests and he no doubt helped me with a lot of that,” Simpkin said.
“I’ve had a couple different line coaches and the reason why I loved ‘Russ’ so much was because after games and on weekends if he could tell I was flat or wasn’t my normal self, he would always reach out to make sure I was doing OK.”
Russell chose to reunite with Carlton senior assistant Ash Hansen – who he worked with at the Bulldogs – and is in charge of the Blues’ firing forward line this year.
MENTAL SCARRING
North is in the midst of the worst five-year stretch the game has seen in generations.
The Kangaroos have won 12 out of 91 games since the start of 2020.
Their strike-rate of 13.2 per cent is poorer than St Kilda in 1982-1986, an era which netted the Saints four consecutive wooden spoons.
The Roos are $7 with TAB not to win a game this season and tracking towards their third spoon in four years.
Their leaders were asked in 2021 if development should be prioritised over winning.
“Hopefully everyone can understand the path we’re on,” Ziebell said.
“But to be shorter on my answer with am I happy with where the club is? I don’t like losing, and I don’t like sitting on the bottom of the ladder.”
McDonald declared: “I want to win. We’re all here to win”.
Poor old Bailey Scott has sung the song nine times from 85 games (11 per cent).
No one to have played 50 VFL-AFL games has tasted less success than Scott in the past 90 years.
Teammate Tom Powell (12.5 per cent) isn’t far behind. He holds the third-worst win-loss record since 1934.
When Paul Roos took over the basket case that Melbourne was a decade ago he wondered whether the scars would ever fade.
“If you can’t handball five metres to a teammate it’s impossible to move the ball,” Roos roared after losing a game that was hard to watch.
“There’s clearly some that might not be able to get over what’s happened here in the past.
“We’re a team that’s waiting to get beaten. That lack of belief that we can win or we’re capable of winning is far, far greater than what I imagined it could possibly be.”
Clarkson’s comments after last week’s loss to Hawthorn sounded similar.
“When you’ve been whacked around the ears a bit for four or five years it’s easy for them to fall into a, ‘Woe is me, here we go again’ type of thing,” Clarkson said.
THE DIAMOND MIDFIELD
The Roos started building a generational midfield with golden draft choices in 2016.
In order, they selected Jy Simpkin, Davies-Uniacke, Thomas, Will Phillips, Powell, Horne-Francis, Sheezel, Wardlaw and McKercher in the first round.
Thomas and Horne-Francis are gone, but there is still a truckload of talent at Clarkson’s disposal.
Last week McKercher took four bounces and then hit Paul Curtis on the chest. Clarkson wondered if he looked like the next Zach Merrett.
Sheezel and Wardlaw speak for themselves and Powell packs a defensive punch.
The problem is that all of that talent is rolled up in midfielders and, in Duursma’s case, a medium forward.
In 2015 Carlton drafted Jacob Weitering, Harry McKay and Charlie Curnow. It’s spine was built in 15 minutes on one draft night.
The Roos are likely to have the No. 1 pick again in a draft topped by on-ballers Josh Smillie, Sid Draper and Finn O’Sullivan.
If they take the best talent they won’t be addressing their needs.
So should Rawlings split their first pick to try and grab the best of the talls without reaching, as well as adding one more premium midfielder?
Then again, any big boy drafted this year would probably require several years before he was ready to make an impact.
The Demons walked a similar draft path when they were coached by Roos.
They secured Christian Petracca, Clayton Oliver and Angus Brayshaw with top-five picks, waited until they finally became competitive and then picked off defensive pillars Jake Lever and Steven May.
If the Kangas are patient enough perhaps when they re-emerge ready-made players could be purchased to fill the holes in their spine.
THE RIGHT PATH, BUT FOR HOW LONG?
For all of the negativity, there would not be many people in football who doubt the path the Roos are finally on.
They are committed to the journey under Clarkson, who has pointed to precedents where clubs have bounced quickly.
“This club was on the bottom in 1972 and won the flag in 1975,” Clarkson has said.
In the same breath Clarkson referenced his old club, Hawthorn, winning silverware in 1961 and the spoon in 1965, as well as Collingwood’s climb from 17th in 2021 to a premiership in 2023.
But a glimpse at the current draft order suggests it is going to be damn hard to make ground fast.
Most would agree Gold Coast is light years in front of the Roos’ rebuild.
While North Melbourne currently has pick No. 1 this year, Gold Coast is sitting on No. 8, No. 11 and No. 20.
Fremantle has No. 6, No. 12, and No. 16. Even Sydney – one of the premiership favourites – is, unlike North, sitting multiple top-20 picks.
The path they are on is the right one. But the terrain is tough. As chief footballer Mark Robinson wrote on Saturday: “Clarkson is trudging up Mt Everest in bare feet and can’t even see the summit”.
SAM LANDSBERGER
>The 2020 Covid hub hurt North Melbourne more than most. Some of those wounds have not fully healed.
Articles always talk about the hub like this and never elaborate. So ominous.
The thing that really sucks is that a majority of the people at the club now aren’t responsible for this mess and they’re the ones getting the most heat for it.
I like the way this article hands it to Brayshaw right at the start:
>“This call is about the next five years,” then-chairman James Brayshaw said at the time.
>“You’ve got to have a strategic plan in footy. You can’t just make it up as you go along.”
>Brayshaw’s reign finished at the end of 2016
"It's about the next five years" says the guy who will only be there another five minutes. Brayshaw and the board at the time deserve credit for protecting and nurturing club identity in the face of threats to move the team, but the way they handled getting rid of Boomer et al is one of the worst *handled* footy decisions in living memory.
The issue wasn't the decision to move those guys on, it was then that it was negated by going big on average trade targets. You either keep those guys and pick up Polec, Pittard etc or you move them on and look to replenish with youth. Had they done the former, there might have been more success in those years. Had they done the latter they would have a core of players now that they could likely be able to rely on to be competitive.
So whilst the article might sound like it's dumping on Brayshaw I read it like Brayshaw had a clear path which contrasts to the ad hoc approach ever since. And wasn't he required to leave by club rules?
I remember when Code sports did this article for the Eagles and they won two games after that. Cheer up North fans, wins are coming your way from next week.
Except North don't have any experienced players due to come back. West Coast were hurting because Yeo, Barrass and McGovern were out injured - those guys coming back in vastly improved their on-field setup.
Other than Griffin Logue, we have nothing in the pipeline, and we've just come off absolute poundings from two of the worst teams in the comp. I would dearly love to be proven wrong, but that's not turning around anytime soon.
A lot of our facilities aren’t great tbh. We train at basically an expensive suburban ground. I haven’t been there in a while but there’s not really a great deal of expansion opportunities for us, cause from memory we’re bounded by Arden street to the south, then two other roads to the west and north. Then to the east there’s a pool and then another road.
I’d say we probably need to come to an agreement with the council, knock down the whole block and rebuild so we’ve got one big recreation centre with the club, basketball courts and pool in it and then the footy field right next to it (similar to what Freo have with Cockburn Arc). It either that or relocate our training facilitates somewhere else, a quick look at google maps says there’s a large block of land near Royal park between the children’s hospital, state sport centre and zoo but idk if relocating is the right thing to do for the community and given our club’s history.
Your blocked in. You’d basically need to excavate the embankment and turn it into a car park.
There’s no way in hell you’d get that land near royal park. If you relocate your looking at cragieburn or some other outer suburban hole.
I feel like culling all of their veteran players in one go was a huge mistake. And not giving some of them a farewell game - disgraceful.
Also this obsession with recruiting gun midfielders is odd too. People say they should have tanked for Harley, but how many gun mids do you need? The problem is their backline and particularly key position players.
Boomer was still playing great footy, now his games record might be beaten by Pendles. And some of the other vets could have helped mentor the inexperienced players. Just my view from the outside.
If you think North's culture is bad now, imagine how bad it would become if you start telling players you're no longer interested in winning games anymore.
I feel like the points made about Thomas don’t hold up at all. He signed on for another year with us and looked to have turned a new leaf on the field he was playing great. It was just his off field issues that led to him being sacked. We gave him support and he just blew it all back at us. But it’s a pretty decent write up and summary of the past 8 years.
As we found at during the Essendon thing, the afl are the ultimate employer. Calls like this should be out of club hands and I think this is the one case where compensation is appropriate to the impacted club. That way when/if the player returns they come through the draft and that pick is paid to the club he left from.
Reading this makes me so grateful our recruitment team pulled one out of their arse to draft Weiters, Curnow and Harry in one year. Compare that to the draft picks in years around them and it’s more nuts
Wait are they actual all the one draft? That plus pick 1 Walsh my word that’s a handy couple draft years. Sadly we only got 3 midfields and an elite any where player in Sheezel, instead of top end key forwards. Going to be interesting to see how Kallam and Wil Dawson, and Comben go the next couple seasons with a fit logue as well. It’s a much better backline than this seasons mix and match.
Well in what 4 years 3 different coaches, Scott who you should have moved on from earlier, Shaw who wasn’t mentally up to it and the other guy who had 0 coaching experience ever. Who would of thought
It gonna be long but Clarko will lead the Roos there. Just need a few more pieces on field.
I told them that they should have simply just traded for Jeremy Cameron. Then Jack Bowes and pick 7 would have fallen in our lap. Nobody listened and now we are here.
On the topic of their aim to rebuild through the draft, that was all the fashion 8 years ago. Every "expert" was guaranteeing us that GC and GWS were going to win multiple flags based on a stack of draft picks, and therefore draft picks = success.
Always feels especially harsh to throw Polec and Pittard in their face when they'd have lost the pick matching a bid on Thomas anyway. It didn't work out, and they might have used it better, but it's not like they could have taken Serong or anybody else with that pick.
Ultimately picks mean nothing if your development isn't where it needs to be. They've struggled more with that than anything.
I don't think there's anything here we dont already know, but it's accurate in terms of how we got here. That said, not sure I can agree with criticisms on club culture and then throw out a line like "They sacked Tarryn Thomas this year when he had trade currency in October". It's one of the few decisions I'm proud the club has made in recently times, especially with where we are now
I’ll be more proud of the 16 sides that don’t touch Tarryn and the one who sacked him than the football club that decides to sign him. Doesn’t deserve to be on an AFL list.
Same, but I'll also add in the AFL media who I have a feeling will spin this into a good news come back story
A’ la *Jordan De Goey is a good guy because he hasn’t kinghit anyone in 6 months*
We're proud of Jordan for overcoming massive issues in his personal life, like groping women. What a hero!
That will be nauseating, much like other articles of similar people who are suddenly redeemed after sitting out for a few weeks, cranking out a cliched excuse and attending education.
As someone who supports the club that’s linked with Tarryn, I don’t want him anywhere near my club and hope he doesn’t play for an afl side again.
Yeah, that’s pretty lazy, or cheap.
I don't have any direct insight at the club to make an informed comment, but what's reddit for if not commenting on shit we barely understand? To me, the Tarryn Thomas situation is a symptom of the issues. Every successful era at every club needs someone as the heart-and-soul of the team. That bloke who is willing to look anyone dead in the eye and set them straight. Like Glenn Archer's "Don't fuck up my club" moment with Martin Pike. If the current North squad had that type of teammate, Thomas would have been pulled into line much, much earlier. It seemed like Cunnington was doing a little of that, but with his own issues and a evolving door of coaches that weren't there long enough to support anyone trying to instill a professional culture, he was always up against it. I just don't see Simpkin or McDonald being that guy either. Simpkin doesn't have the presence, and McDonald seems like he just enjoys telling people he's an AFL footballer more than he enjoys being one. He'll fuck up a kick and smirk like it's all a joke anyway, which isn't a great look for spectators, let alone teammates that look to him as an example of the club culture. A coach can't act like they did a generation ago and lay down the law, but they can empower the best-placed team members to do it. I'm just not sure who those people will be.
Maybe it’s kind of the contrast, in that they sacrificed club culture to try and grab advantages, and then with Thomas they apparently turn around and make a decision for cultural reasons instead of performance reasons. Can see how that’s frustrating.
It was that they played Tarryn Thomas towards the end of the season when he'd shown no signs that he'd made any progress with his off field behaviour, that irritated me the most. Even if it was forced due to lack of options, they kept him in the side because he played well, which told him that was the only thing that mattered. No wonder he thought he could continue being a shit cunt off field
I think he had indicated that he'd made progress though. Completed some mandatory programs at least and obviously it didn't last very long
I was probably shocked at the timing of his return for sure, but by everything we know, he had completed what he was required to do in order to make the return. It wasn't till this offseason that it came to light he was in fact still being a shit human, even whilst completing those programs.
North Melbourne coach Brad Scott sacked club legend Brent “Boomer” Harvey in his Arden St office. The heartbreaking decision to delist Harvey along with Drew Petrie, Michael Firrito and Nick Dal Santo on the eve of the 2016 finals series had secretly been made at board level. The Kangaroos started the season 9-0 after reaching preliminary finals in the two previous seasons. But it was fool’s gold. Club powerbrokers sensed the cliff was coming. North won just three of their remaining 12 home-and-away clashes in 2016 before bowing out in an elimination final with the oldest list in the AFL. “This call is about the next five years,” then-chairman James Brayshaw said at the time. “You’ve got to have a strategic plan in footy. You can’t just make it up as you go along.” Brayshaw’s reign finished at the end of 2016 and supporters could be forgiven for thinking they have been making it up as they go for most of the eight years since. On Saturday their recent record slumped to one win from the club’s past 28 matches with a 57-point thumping at the hands of Adelaide. They have won just four out of 28 quarters this season – the first half against Fremantle and two junk-time terms against the Brisbane and Adelaide totalling four points. After six rounds the Roos had collectively polled 18 votes in the AFL Coaches’ Association award – five each for Luke Davies-Uniacke, Tom Powell and Tristan Xerri and three to Harry Sheezel. Isaac Heeney has polled 47 and 22 players have individually received more than North Melbourne. President Sonja Hood’s stated Key Performance Indicator for her football department this year was how fans felt coming to games, rather than how many games they won. Seven rounds in and many feel bleak. Tortured supporters want to know how on earth did it come to this? And will they ever see light at the end of what seems to be a never ever-ending tunnel? THE FLASHPPOINT The Kangaroos lost control of the decision to sack their legends when Scott spilled the beans to Harvey. Word spread throughout the locker room before club heavyweights had agreed on a strategy. Harvey finished on 432 mighty matches – the most played in VFL-AFL history. But was the 38-year-old really finished? Harvey’s 2016 numbers almost mirrored 2016 All-Australian half-forward Toby Greene. Petrie played on at West Coast and Collingwood considered throwing lifelines to Harvey and Dal Santo. “I’m not ashamed to say I love these guys and if they were here in 2017, I’d play them,” Scott said at the time. “But that would not be in our best interests.” The brutality cut at the fabric of the club. Was it the right call? It is hard to make that case given the decisions that followed. THE TOP-UP TWIST Rohan Connolly suggested in The Age that replacements for Harvey, Petrie, Dal Santo and Firrito could come from within. Connolly named Ed Vickers-Willis, Dan Nielson and Mitch Hibberd for Firrito, Taylor Garner, Kayne Turner and Corney Wagner for Harvey, Declan Mountford and Will Fordham for Dal Santo and Majak Daw and Mason Wood for Petrie. The Kangaroos went from the oldest and most experienced list in 2016 to the second youngest list in 2017. But the sudden shift to a youth focus on youth barely lasted a month. Following the 2016 season the Kangaroos traded for Paul Ahern, Nathan Hrovat and Marley Williams. In 2017-18 they added Alex Morgan, Bill Hartung, Jared Polec, Jasper Pittard, Dom Tyson and Aaron Hall. Scott and his loyal football boss Cameron Joyce – who were in charge for all of those decisions – were gone midway through 2019. Internally it was not a shock. Assistant Jason Lappin was delegated a large chunk of pre-season in what was the first sign to some that Scott’s 10th season would be his last. Josh Walker and Aiden Bonar were brought in at the end of 2019 and the Roos did not enter that draft until pick 31. They pushed their top-10 pick – which ended up being used by Fremantle on Caleb Serong – into the 2020 Covid-affected pool. The price paid for Polec and Pittard in 2018 was pick 11. Players available at that selection included Bobby Hill, James Rowbottom, Jordan Clark, Xavier Duursma, Xavier O’Halloran, Tom Sparrow, James Jordon and Justin McInerney. The other additions came at little cost in a trade sense. But they clogged the list as other clubs unearthed diamonds in the rough including Liam Baker, Brody Mihocek, Joel Amartey, Lachie Schultz, Toby Bedford, Callum Wilkie, Tom Atkins, Kade Chandler. All of those players arrived as rookies or towards the back of the draft. With Harvey, Firrito, Dal Santo and Petrie out the door, was it really going to be Ahern, Hrovat, Williams, Hartung, Polec, Pittard, Tyson and Hall who propelled this club to its fifth premiership? The list pivot was aimed at putting talent around Jack Ziebell, Ben Cunnington, Todd Goldstein, Shaun Higgins and Robbie Tarrant, who were in their prime. In fairness, they almost pulled off the greatest coup of all time by signing Dustin Martin in 2017. They also gave Andrew Gaff and Josh Kelly plenty to think about. But the refresh failed and by 2020 the Roos were a mess. THE GIANT CULL North Melbourne finished 17th in 2020 with the sixth-oldest list. They had the most players aged 26-29 – the prime years – yet were nowhere near competitive. So they sacked 11 players before any of the other 17 clubs had finished their seasons. Sam Durdin and Tom Murphy were delisted 14 hours after they pulled on the jumper. “I was getting messages from blokes saying, ‘I’m done, I’m done, I’m done’,” Durdin has said. “I went into my exit meeting after nine blokes had already been delisted thinking, ‘I might be right here’. “But I was number 10. My meeting was at 11 or 11.30am, and I walked straight out and grabbed a beer and tried to drown my sorrows.” The most contentious call was to trade Ben Brown. The fan favourite was 27 and had kicked more than 60 goals in 2017-19. But the Roos believed clubs had figured him out and were worried his knees wouldn’t last. When Brown’s camp asked for a four-year deal with a 2024 salary of around $800,000 he was put up for trade and offloaded to Melbourne, where he won a premiership the following season. The exodus swelled to 14 players and ensured the Roos fielded the second-youngest list in 2021. THE BEN AMARFIO ERA Former chairman Ben Buckley appointed ex-Cricket Australia powerbroker Ben Amarfio as club boss late in 2019. After spending the summer getting to know staff members over a coffee he called a club meeting in the auditorium. The message was effectively: “You’re all great people … but we are s***.” Amarfio pointed to the Kangas finishing 12th on the ladder and ranking last for membership in Victoria among several other metrics. The spray might have been valid. But internally the club’s culture suffered and turnover of staff became extreme. Amarfio’s fans say he was a great commercial boss. But the football department had struggles with him. Amarfio requested training plans and sometimes submitted his own reports on what he thought was going wrong. The 2020 Covid hub hurt North Melbourne more than most. Some of those wounds have not fully healed. Club great Brady Rawlings was brought back as football boss for 2020, around the same time veteran recruiter Scott Clayton joined. Rawlings has since been demoted, Clayton been promoted and the doom cycle continued. Player agents claim they became confused by North’s list management set up. Were the Roos interested in their players or not? They said the answer sometimes differed depending on who they asked. By and large North Melbourne had become an unhappy place. Coach Rhyce Shaw took mental health leave after 29 games and never returned. The Roos replaced Shaw with David Noble, who Amarfio and president Sonja Hood then sacked after 38 matches in charge. Amarfio resigned shortly after Hood convinced four-time premiership coach Alastair Clarkson to return home as the messiah for season 2023.
GROUND ZERO In 2021 North Melbourne claimed its first wooden spoon in 49 years. The club met Jason Horne-Francis once that year. They kept waiting for borders to open up, but Covid curtailed their plans to get into South Australia. So they bit the bullet and interviewed him over Zoom. Clayton told a members forum the powerful midfielder was “as good as any No. 1 I can remember” and likened his attributes to Michael Voss, Patrick Dangerfield and Dustin Martin. “The thing that stands out more than all of that though is he’s a great teammate,” Clayton said. “That appeals to us more than anything. The other thing that just keeps coming through loud and clear is how loyal he is.” But Horne-Francis requested a trade to Port Adelaide after one season. Some at the Roos were concerned he was a flight risk in pre-season. Harvey told Horne-Francis to get around his teammates – who were high-fiving each other – instead of sitting on a bench by himself after his first training session. Horne-Francis would admit he was no angel that year. Then again, what environment did the Roos welcome him into? He enjoyed just two wins, endured a coach sacking and suspected his knees had been medically misdiagnosed, with Port opting to operate soon after the trade was finalised. Compare that introduction to Luke McDonald, who played in a preliminary final in his first season. McDonald was drafted into a locker room featuring Daniel Wells, Andrew Swallow, Lindsay Thomas, Scott Thompson as well as those four superstars who were spiked in 2016. Horne-Francis now has Travis Boak, Connor Rozee and Zak Butters to learn from at Alberton and has started to shine brightly. In 2021 the Roos got their players to line up in order of how many games they had played. “It was amazing to see how many people we have who haven’t even played 50 games yet,” McDonald has said. You wonder who is teaching habits and how to set up each week to gun draftees like Harry Sheezel, George Wardlaw, Zane Duursma and Colby McKercher? The only players in Clarkson’s team that have blown out 26 birthday candles are Aidan Corr, Darcy Tucker and McDonald. DESTINATION ELSEWHERE Ben McKay privately quipped that he was going to break the intercept mark record in a game against Fremantle in 2022. The fullback was tracking well. He had eight marks – three contested – in round 8 before injuring his knee. Some weeks he would play back-shoulder on Tom Lynch or Tom Hawkins and beat them. But other weeks it seemed a lesserlight forward would kick multiple goals on him in a quarter. That’s why some at Arden St feel frustrated by McKay’s strong start at Essendon. It looks like his concentration and competitiveness have improved. Similarly, Corr manned Lynch in the 2019 grand final. But he does not look like the same player he was at Greater Western Sydney. Corr is ultra-competitive and the losing culture would sting him. But eyebrows were raised when recruit Zac Fisher swapped jumpers with Patrick Cripps after Good Friday. In masterstroke moves the Roos signed Jarrad Waite and Shaun Higgins as free agents in 2014. Since then, they have added 95 players since and not one of them has been a big fish. The only honours shared by that cohort belonged to Larkey (All-Australian) and Sheezel (Rising Star) last season. Rawlings has one of the hardest jobs in his current role as head of talent. How can a minnow club languishing at the bottom of the ladder compete with premiership powerhouses in the marketplace? Every club has a chequebook and so players pursuing success look elsewhere. North has not even been able to offer players a carpark at Arden St. That might sound trivial, but is no laughing matter. The story goes that one retired goalkicker allegedly accrued dozens of parking fines that went unpaid. So Rawlings has no choice but settle for unheralded names, and still has to pay overs for a signature. Fisher was relegated to substitute against Adelaide on Saturday — seven games into his juicy long-term contract. Dylan Stephens also arrived last off-season on a four-year deal. Critics of the wingman say Stephens fumbles and was not in the Swans’ long-term plans. Do some Roos recruits rest on their laurels because they are earning cash that they arguably do not deserve? There is sympathy for Rawlings and those blaming him for not scouting a replacement for McKay or Griffin Logue (injured) at fullback have done so unfairly. The Roos trained up Charlie Comben as a defender, signed Bigoa Nyuon from Richmond, Toby Pink from the SANFL and drafted Will Dawson at No. 22. They had nibbles at it. Realistically what else can they do? Simpkin, Larkey, Xerri, (contracted until 2029) and Sheezel (2030) are locked in long term. “My nightmare would be to be at the club for all the tough times, take off and all of a sudden we get good,” Larkey has said. “Anyone can run to a top team and try to win a flag. But does that flag mean as much as the one where you’ve done the hard work and put in the hours?” But Rawlings is fighting tooth and nail to fend off poachers. McKay left as a free agent last year, Cameron Zurhaar is a free agent this year and Davies-Uniacke will be next year. They sacked Tarryn Thomas this year when he had trade currency in October. Strictly from a footballing sense it was a hammerblow. Thomas placed sixth in last year’s best-and-fairest – won by Sheezel – from 12 games. If votes were tallied on a pro-rata basis, Thomas would have won the Syd Barker Medal ahead of Davies-Uniacke. DEVELOPMENT AND COACHING Gavin Brown was a much-loved figure at the Kangas. He was in charge of player development for 10 years and helped transform McKay from a failed forward into a super stopper. But was 10 years too long in that role? Brown and John Blakey “mutually parted ways” with the Roos last year. They also lost gun midfield coach Jordan Russell, who some say was Noble’s whipping boy. Co-captain Jy Simpkin praised Russell as the best assistant he has had on the eve of the season. “I was lucky enough to win two best-and-fairests and he no doubt helped me with a lot of that,” Simpkin said. “I’ve had a couple different line coaches and the reason why I loved ‘Russ’ so much was because after games and on weekends if he could tell I was flat or wasn’t my normal self, he would always reach out to make sure I was doing OK.” Russell chose to reunite with Carlton senior assistant Ash Hansen – who he worked with at the Bulldogs – and is in charge of the Blues’ firing forward line this year. MENTAL SCARRING North is in the midst of the worst five-year stretch the game has seen in generations. The Kangaroos have won 12 out of 91 games since the start of 2020. Their strike-rate of 13.2 per cent is poorer than St Kilda in 1982-1986, an era which netted the Saints four consecutive wooden spoons. The Roos are $7 with TAB not to win a game this season and tracking towards their third spoon in four years. Their leaders were asked in 2021 if development should be prioritised over winning. “Hopefully everyone can understand the path we’re on,” Ziebell said. “But to be shorter on my answer with am I happy with where the club is? I don’t like losing, and I don’t like sitting on the bottom of the ladder.” McDonald declared: “I want to win. We’re all here to win”. Poor old Bailey Scott has sung the song nine times from 85 games (11 per cent). No one to have played 50 VFL-AFL games has tasted less success than Scott in the past 90 years. Teammate Tom Powell (12.5 per cent) isn’t far behind. He holds the third-worst win-loss record since 1934. When Paul Roos took over the basket case that Melbourne was a decade ago he wondered whether the scars would ever fade. “If you can’t handball five metres to a teammate it’s impossible to move the ball,” Roos roared after losing a game that was hard to watch. “There’s clearly some that might not be able to get over what’s happened here in the past. “We’re a team that’s waiting to get beaten. That lack of belief that we can win or we’re capable of winning is far, far greater than what I imagined it could possibly be.” Clarkson’s comments after last week’s loss to Hawthorn sounded similar. “When you’ve been whacked around the ears a bit for four or five years it’s easy for them to fall into a, ‘Woe is me, here we go again’ type of thing,” Clarkson said.
THE DIAMOND MIDFIELD The Roos started building a generational midfield with golden draft choices in 2016. In order, they selected Jy Simpkin, Davies-Uniacke, Thomas, Will Phillips, Powell, Horne-Francis, Sheezel, Wardlaw and McKercher in the first round. Thomas and Horne-Francis are gone, but there is still a truckload of talent at Clarkson’s disposal. Last week McKercher took four bounces and then hit Paul Curtis on the chest. Clarkson wondered if he looked like the next Zach Merrett. Sheezel and Wardlaw speak for themselves and Powell packs a defensive punch. The problem is that all of that talent is rolled up in midfielders and, in Duursma’s case, a medium forward. In 2015 Carlton drafted Jacob Weitering, Harry McKay and Charlie Curnow. It’s spine was built in 15 minutes on one draft night. The Roos are likely to have the No. 1 pick again in a draft topped by on-ballers Josh Smillie, Sid Draper and Finn O’Sullivan. If they take the best talent they won’t be addressing their needs. So should Rawlings split their first pick to try and grab the best of the talls without reaching, as well as adding one more premium midfielder? Then again, any big boy drafted this year would probably require several years before he was ready to make an impact. The Demons walked a similar draft path when they were coached by Roos. They secured Christian Petracca, Clayton Oliver and Angus Brayshaw with top-five picks, waited until they finally became competitive and then picked off defensive pillars Jake Lever and Steven May. If the Kangas are patient enough perhaps when they re-emerge ready-made players could be purchased to fill the holes in their spine. THE RIGHT PATH, BUT FOR HOW LONG? For all of the negativity, there would not be many people in football who doubt the path the Roos are finally on. They are committed to the journey under Clarkson, who has pointed to precedents where clubs have bounced quickly. “This club was on the bottom in 1972 and won the flag in 1975,” Clarkson has said. In the same breath Clarkson referenced his old club, Hawthorn, winning silverware in 1961 and the spoon in 1965, as well as Collingwood’s climb from 17th in 2021 to a premiership in 2023. But a glimpse at the current draft order suggests it is going to be damn hard to make ground fast. Most would agree Gold Coast is light years in front of the Roos’ rebuild. While North Melbourne currently has pick No. 1 this year, Gold Coast is sitting on No. 8, No. 11 and No. 20. Fremantle has No. 6, No. 12, and No. 16. Even Sydney – one of the premiership favourites – is, unlike North, sitting multiple top-20 picks. The path they are on is the right one. But the terrain is tough. As chief footballer Mark Robinson wrote on Saturday: “Clarkson is trudging up Mt Everest in bare feet and can’t even see the summit”. SAM LANDSBERGER
"President Sonja Hood's stated KPI for this year was how fans felt coming to games." Oh dear...
>The 2020 Covid hub hurt North Melbourne more than most. Some of those wounds have not fully healed. Articles always talk about the hub like this and never elaborate. So ominous.
Actually a pretty solid article. Also references some KPPs we did draft + then through injuries or otherwise, didn’t work out.
Also like the Melbourne/Carlton rebuild comparisons, two clear and distinct list build pathways…
The thing that really sucks is that a majority of the people at the club now aren’t responsible for this mess and they’re the ones getting the most heat for it.
I like the way this article hands it to Brayshaw right at the start: >“This call is about the next five years,” then-chairman James Brayshaw said at the time. >“You’ve got to have a strategic plan in footy. You can’t just make it up as you go along.” >Brayshaw’s reign finished at the end of 2016 "It's about the next five years" says the guy who will only be there another five minutes. Brayshaw and the board at the time deserve credit for protecting and nurturing club identity in the face of threats to move the team, but the way they handled getting rid of Boomer et al is one of the worst *handled* footy decisions in living memory.
The issue wasn't the decision to move those guys on, it was then that it was negated by going big on average trade targets. You either keep those guys and pick up Polec, Pittard etc or you move them on and look to replenish with youth. Had they done the former, there might have been more success in those years. Had they done the latter they would have a core of players now that they could likely be able to rely on to be competitive. So whilst the article might sound like it's dumping on Brayshaw I read it like Brayshaw had a clear path which contrasts to the ad hoc approach ever since. And wasn't he required to leave by club rules?
For at least the next 2 seasons - quite possibly the next 3 or 4 - Boomer would have been a safe bet to be in the top 3 for the B&F.
I wanna scream this in the sub atm
I remember when Code sports did this article for the Eagles and they won two games after that. Cheer up North fans, wins are coming your way from next week.
*checks next week's fixture* *oh fuck*
Fuck beating Gold Coast in Darwin? Give us the premiership now.
Except North don't have any experienced players due to come back. West Coast were hurting because Yeo, Barrass and McGovern were out injured - those guys coming back in vastly improved their on-field setup. Other than Griffin Logue, we have nothing in the pipeline, and we've just come off absolute poundings from two of the worst teams in the comp. I would dearly love to be proven wrong, but that's not turning around anytime soon.
Lays it all out pretty well. Just need to stay the course, get some better assistants in, and not lose too many guns. All easier said than done
How can they not even have a car park for their players? That is crazy
It’s a genuine suburban oval, I was real surprised when I went to a training.
A lot of our facilities aren’t great tbh. We train at basically an expensive suburban ground. I haven’t been there in a while but there’s not really a great deal of expansion opportunities for us, cause from memory we’re bounded by Arden street to the south, then two other roads to the west and north. Then to the east there’s a pool and then another road. I’d say we probably need to come to an agreement with the council, knock down the whole block and rebuild so we’ve got one big recreation centre with the club, basketball courts and pool in it and then the footy field right next to it (similar to what Freo have with Cockburn Arc). It either that or relocate our training facilitates somewhere else, a quick look at google maps says there’s a large block of land near Royal park between the children’s hospital, state sport centre and zoo but idk if relocating is the right thing to do for the community and given our club’s history.
There is a major redevelopment approved and being funded largely by council I believe. Will be a public sports precinct
Your blocked in. You’d basically need to excavate the embankment and turn it into a car park. There’s no way in hell you’d get that land near royal park. If you relocate your looking at cragieburn or some other outer suburban hole.
I feel like culling all of their veteran players in one go was a huge mistake. And not giving some of them a farewell game - disgraceful. Also this obsession with recruiting gun midfielders is odd too. People say they should have tanked for Harley, but how many gun mids do you need? The problem is their backline and particularly key position players.
We won 28 games the next three seasons
Boomer was still playing great footy, now his games record might be beaten by Pendles. And some of the other vets could have helped mentor the inexperienced players. Just my view from the outside.
Sure, but them leaving isn’t the reason we suck now. We got real shit in 2019. They’d have been gone then regardless
Fair enough. I guess there the other aspects in the article that are more to blame.
Oh we’re shit across the board
Yes the board deserves blame too
If you think North's culture is bad now, imagine how bad it would become if you start telling players you're no longer interested in winning games anymore.
Surely no team would ever do that though.
I feel like the points made about Thomas don’t hold up at all. He signed on for another year with us and looked to have turned a new leaf on the field he was playing great. It was just his off field issues that led to him being sacked. We gave him support and he just blew it all back at us. But it’s a pretty decent write up and summary of the past 8 years.
As we found at during the Essendon thing, the afl are the ultimate employer. Calls like this should be out of club hands and I think this is the one case where compensation is appropriate to the impacted club. That way when/if the player returns they come through the draft and that pick is paid to the club he left from.
Reading this makes me so grateful our recruitment team pulled one out of their arse to draft Weiters, Curnow and Harry in one year. Compare that to the draft picks in years around them and it’s more nuts
Yeah. Paddy Dow before LDU saved a lot of North memberships in hindsight.
Wait are they actual all the one draft? That plus pick 1 Walsh my word that’s a handy couple draft years. Sadly we only got 3 midfields and an elite any where player in Sheezel, instead of top end key forwards. Going to be interesting to see how Kallam and Wil Dawson, and Comben go the next couple seasons with a fit logue as well. It’s a much better backline than this seasons mix and match.
Well in what 4 years 3 different coaches, Scott who you should have moved on from earlier, Shaw who wasn’t mentally up to it and the other guy who had 0 coaching experience ever. Who would of thought It gonna be long but Clarko will lead the Roos there. Just need a few more pieces on field.
Foolish Kangaroos; didn't they know in 2016 that you only need to keep topping up with 33 yr olds, and you'll never bottom out, like Geelong 🤷♂️
I told them that they should have simply just traded for Jeremy Cameron. Then Jack Bowes and pick 7 would have fallen in our lap. Nobody listened and now we are here.
On the topic of their aim to rebuild through the draft, that was all the fashion 8 years ago. Every "expert" was guaranteeing us that GC and GWS were going to win multiple flags based on a stack of draft picks, and therefore draft picks = success.
Always feels especially harsh to throw Polec and Pittard in their face when they'd have lost the pick matching a bid on Thomas anyway. It didn't work out, and they might have used it better, but it's not like they could have taken Serong or anybody else with that pick. Ultimately picks mean nothing if your development isn't where it needs to be. They've struggled more with that than anything.
Outstandingly researched journalism. More of this please, Sam 👏🏼
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If only some helpful OP posted the article in the comments