AFL 2022: North Melbourne powerbrokers face members in Q&A amid internal division
North Melbourne’s chief executive, football manager and coach have faced the music in a members Q&A, calling for calm and claiming that the club is united.
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North Melbourne chief executive Ben Amarfio has told members the Kangaroos’ board and management are “backing” coach David Noble to drag the club out of the dark hole in which it currently finds itself.
After a week in which three senior recruiting staff sensationally quit the club, reports of internal divisions and former greats claiming the Kangaroos were at one of their lowest ebbs, Amarfio called for calm ahead of Sunday’s clash with St Kilda.
In a members’ Q&A conducted on Wednesday, Noble also said his team was making “marginal gains” on the field as general manager of football talent Brady Rawlings expressed confidence No.1 pick Jason Horne-Francis would re-commit to the club.
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“We know where we’re at inside the club,” Amarfio said. “We’re united, we’re tight. The players are happy, the staff’s happy. The board is united behind us and we’re backing management, we’re backing our coach.”
“So that (talk of disharmony) is really disappointing and that affects us all, but as a team, we’re sticking together and we’ve got our eyes firmly set on the long term.
“We went into this (rebuild) knowing it was going to be tough - and it is tough.
“Would we like the (losing) margins to be less? Of course we would.
“(But) rebuilds are slow. They take time and you can’t speed it up. We’d love the universe to move more quickly but you can’t hurry peoples’ development.
“We’re taking our licks but we are focused on the long term. We’re focused on the plan and we know where we’re going.”
Asked which measurements the coaching staff were using internally to counter the club’s 1-9 win-loss ledger, Noble said: “One of the areas we work through is what we call marginal gains … we look for small incremental wins along the way.”
“We have a number of measurements internally that we chase on a weekly basis. A couple of examples are quarters won and halves won.
“We are in front on (some of) our metrics from this time last year. We are working on the defensive side of our games. Those (losing) margins are way too big and we are trying to bring them back significantly under 100 points.”
Rawlings said of Horne-Francis, who has put off contract talks until the end of the season: “Obviously we’d love to re-sign Jason at the right time.”
“He’s a terrific young player and a great acquisition to our footy club.
“He seems extremely happy at the club; he’s got good mates (at North Melbourne). He’s getting educated really well and he’s playing some terrific footy.”
Roos adamant No.1 pick happy amid North unrest
— Rebecca Williams
North Melbourne general manager of football Brady Rawlings insists No. 1 draft pick Jason Horne-Francis is happy at Arden Street and has backed under siege coach David Noble to lead the club’s rebuild.
As the struggling club was plunged into more turmoil following the departure of three key recruiting staff, Rawlings dismissed reports Horne-Francis was cautioned by the over a trip home to Adelaide without their knowledge as “nonsense”.
The Kangaroos’ prized number one overall pick, Horne-Francis has put talks for a contract extension on hold until the end of his debut season.
The Adelaide product, already a standout in his first season, has another year to run in his two-season deal.
Asked if the young midfield star was happy at Arden Street, Rawlings said Horne-Francis seemed “extremely happy” around the club.
“All I can comment on is the way that I see him around the club, he has got a big grin on his face, he has got a great group of young mates that he was drafted with,” Rawlings said on Wednesday on SEN.
“He is playing some terrific football and that’s what I see.
“It’s probably not for me to comment on how happy he is, but from what I see he seems extremely happy.
“He is always around the boys and up and about, especially over the last couple of weeks.”
Rawlings dismissed reports the club had cautioned Horne-Francis over an interstate trip home to Adelaide after the team’s Round 8 loss to Fremantle as an “absolute non-story”.
“The players were given two and half days off post the Friday night game, encouraged to go and see their families with an 18-year-old from interstate in his first season at the club choses to go back to Adelaide to see his mum on Mother’s Day,” Rawlings said.
“Now if anyone thinks that as a club we would have any issue with that at all, they are absolutely kidding themselves.
“There is a process that we have and he missed a little step, that was the only item that was spoken about. To say that he was cautioned is absolute nonsense.”
The Horne-Francis headlines and loss of recruiting personnel ahead of the mid-season draft are the latest dramas to beset the 1-9 Kangaroos after a challenging start to the season.
But Rawlings said he had confidence Noble was the right man to see the club through its rebuild.
“David has been great,” Rawlings said.
“I think you have heard from players week in, week out around their thoughts on the coach and the environment he creates.
“He is a year and a half in, he has got amazing experiences on all elements of the footy club, all aspects and he has put a team around him that we think are going to be the best team to develop our players and get the best out of them.”
Rawlings admitted the club’s rebuild was where he thought it would be at this stage
“It is where I thought it would be – it takes a long time,” Rawlings said.
“We have seen many clubs go through this over the years and they have come through and been really successful at the end of the day and that’s our plan.
“We want to see growth in our players, we want to get games into our youth but they have also got to deserve their games as well.
“It can turn pretty quickly once players gel and play together and get that experience together and we are not quite there yet. We have seen a lot of clubs in recent history that have been in this exact position and are now very successful clubs.
“That’s our plan, everyone bought into the decisions that we were going to make to go back and get some good draft picks and make some big list transitions and that’s what we have done and we’re sticking to the path”
Meanwhile, Rawlings confirmed premiership coach Paul Roos remained involved with the club as a leadership and executive leadership consultant, but not in a coaching capacity.
“Roosy is still involved with the club with our leadership consultant,” Rawlings said.
“He also works with our exec team. Each of us on the exec team catch up with Roosy quite often. Not from a coaching or on-field (point of view), it’s more the leadership and executive leadership.”
NO. 1 PICK THOUGHT CLUBBING IN ADELAIDE WAS OK
Jon Ralph
North Melbourne has warned Jason Horne-Francis to inform them of any future interstate trips after he returned home to see his mother Trish without the club’s knowledge.
The Roos players returned from a Friday night belting against Fremantle and were told in the Melbourne Airport departure lounge to enjoy their weekend off before a Tuesday return to the club.
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Football boss Daniel McPherson told the players if possible to see their mothers for the upcoming Mother’s Day on Sunday, with Horne-Francis taking it upon himself to fly home to Adelaide.
He posted on social media with friends at an Adelaide nightclub, unaware he had broken any club protocols.
He flew back to Melbourne on Monday night, and at training on Tuesday had a tight hamstring that saw the Roos rest him the next week.
The Roos told him they would prefer to be told when he was flying home, with implications for players including the ASADA Whereabouts provisions that mean clubs must update drug testers about the availability of players.
But given the understandable mix-up, there was no punishment for an innocent mistake.
The Roos are adamant he was simply rested with a tight hamstring, but the continued speculation about their best young player is an unwelcome distraction to a club with enough issues.
Horne-Francis’s manager Ben Williams told the Herald Sun on Tuesday night: “He was given a weekend off and he went home for Mother’s Day. I don’t even know why this is a story.”
Horne-Francis has put off talks until the end of the season, with list boss Brady Rawlings on Tuesday saying it was not unusual given none of that year’s draft class had put pen to paper.
The Roos had believed he was keen to sign a new deal on the eve of the season, but amid conjecture about the future of coach David Noble it is understandable he would hold off on talks.
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Originally published as AFL 2022: North Melbourne powerbrokers face members in Q&A amid internal division
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