Clarko’s cluster 2.0? How the Roos have evolved and what it means for the 2025 draft

No one noticed Alastair Clarkson’s recent coaching masterstroke but it may well ensure North’s draft bombshell from 2024 doesn’t blow up in their face, writes JON RALPH.

It was the Alastair Clarkson coaching masterstroke that no one even noticed.

As the football world asked whether four-time premiership coach still had the ability to sprinkle magic dust across his list, he went to work.

Given the Roos are so off-Broadway, the competition didn’t blink.

But Clarkson’s decision to drop first-choice defenders Griffin Logue and Aidan Corr had echoes of Ross Lyon’s line-in-the-sand call to dump Nick Dal Santo and Steven Milne in 2008.

That week the Roos still gave up seven first-quarter goals to Port Adelaide before nearly stealing the Adelaide Oval clash.

Pink blanketed Blues star Charlie Curnow on Saturday. Picture: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images

But in the past seven weeks the Roos have given up only one 100-point score, to the rampaging Pies.

And kept teams to 65 points (Essendon), 71 (Brisbane), 74 (Richmond), 52 (West Coast), 73 (Fremantle) and 73 (Carlton).

The key to that defensive stranglehold starts with the forward line as Jacob Konstanty brings the tackling heat and then relies upon two-way run from the midfield core.

But as North Melbourne centre half back Charlie Comben revealed earlier this month, it is also about rigid adherence to system.

When a key defender passes over their man to their teammate in a zone defence, the absolute necessity is to get that job done.

When it is time for a defender to guard space instead of get sucked up the ground, Clarkson expects them to play their role instead of allowing holes to develop in that zone.

It might not be Clarko’s Cluster 2.0, but Comben said the new multi-layered defensive scheme was finally clicking.

“‘Griff’ is a tremendous footballer. He’s a great, great player. Aidan Corr and ‘Griff’ will both admit that at the time that they got dropped, it wasn’t from a skill issue, it just was the fact that they weren’t playing the system as well as they could be,” Comben said.

Alastair Clarkson’s defence has turned the corner. Picture: James Wiltshire/AFL Photos via Getty Images

“So that’s why they found themselves out of the team. We have had complete buy-in across all three lines. And now we are seeing some great uptake in how we are performing.

“Most teams play a rotating system defence. We found at different points that we would give a job to a key defender and then they wouldn’t be in our system defence which wouldn’t help us because it would make the field so long.

“We have had better defensive buy in from our midfield group in terms of transition (run), our forwards are really helping as well in terms of getting delay on the ball so our backs can set up. It’s an across-three-lines thing. We all had things to work on and in the last weeks we have remedied all those things so it’s all gelled together into one.”

Former SANFL defender Toby Pink is no one’s idea of a superstar but given help across the field he was able to keep Charlie Curnow goalless on Saturday.

Only when the Roos went into their shells and played a defensive, risk-averse style in the last quarter was that pincer hold released.

So has Clarkson still got it?

“One hundred per cent, he’s still got it. I am with him day to day. I see how invested he is in each individual. Whether they are playing AFL, VFL, each individual staff member around the place. He knows everyone’s name in the whole club, which is awesome. He spends time building individual relationships.

“We have seen the shift we have made with our defence and that’s come off the back of consistent hammering and messaging from Clarko. This is how we will play and this will work.”

Now comes the chance to cash in on that form with late-season wins that could yet partly justify the decision to trade out the future first-rounder for pick 28 (Matt Whitlock) and Richmond’s 2025 second-round selection.

The Roos gambled to grab Whitlock. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

The Roos are in third-last place on the ladder with four and a half wins (18 premiership points).

If they keep up this form they could leapfrog St Kilda and Melbourne (20 premiership points) and Essendon (24 premiership points).

Even 10th-placed Carlton is only six premiership points ahead.

If the Roos could finish 12th or 13th, that draft pick might end up near 10 by the time father-son and academy bids are matched with a likely Oscar Allen compensation pick.

The Roos would argue securing a 10-year defender in an elite 2024 draft is worth the swap of pick 10 in a poor draft by the time they also secure Richmond’s second round selection.

It is currently at pick 20 but will blow out even more in a highly compromised draft.

But for the first time in a long time at Arden Street, there is belief in the coach and hope in the future.

Originally published as Clarko’s cluster 2.0? How the Roos have evolved and what it means for the 2025 draft