North Melbourne set to make huge list changes at end of 2020 season
North Melbourne faces key calls on several of its veterans at the end of the year, with more than 20 Roos set to come out of contract. Which players will survive if the club shifts its focus to youth?
Mark Robinson
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North Melbourne is bracing for a massive list overhaul that will inject elite junior talent and make hard calls on the battling middle-tier core.
The club’s five-match losing streak has come amid a savage injury toll from a team that coach Rhyce Shaw said in the pre-season could win the premiership.
North Melbourne has as many as 21 players out of contract and armed with two first-round picks has maximum flexibility to improve its list.
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The injuries have laid bare the club’s alarming lack of depth with injuries to stars and emerging kids including Jack Ziebell, Ben Cunnington, Tarryn Thomas, Nick Larkey, Majak Daw and Luke Davies-Uniacke.
A trade for out-of-contract forward Ben Brown would not be out of the question if the Roos could secure a third first-round pick and his form slump continues late into the season.
The Roos have bolstered their recruiting department with head of player personnel Scott Clayton who joins recruiting manager Mark Finnigan and Glenn Luff as the club’s list manager.
It will give the club a fresh eye to how far it is from a premiership and the moves it needs to make to get there.
Players out of contract include Ben Jacobs, Mason Wood, Jamie McMillan, Ed Vickers-Willis, Jasper Pittard, Kayne Turner, Daw, Marley Williams, Lachie Hosie, Paul Ahern, Sam Durdin, Taylor Garner and Thomas Murphy.
North Melbourne has been roundly criticised for making backline coach Jared Rivers and forward coach Brendan Whitecross redundant but internally that is not seen as a cause of the club’s issues.
The club has an array of coaches including Shaw, Jade Rawlings, Gavin Brown, Leigh Adams, Heath Scotland and Brent Harvey in its hub.
Shaw is a former defensive coach who has taken on more of those responsibilities in recent months.
When the club moved on long-time coach Brad Scott there was an admission from the departing coach that the club had never rebuilt and needed to bank more early picks.
“I look at the way this industry works and the recruiters need more opportunity than they have in the past,” Scott said.
“In terms of our build we entered it on the back of a period of competitiveness but the downside is in the first three years we finished ninth, ninth and eighth.
“Then we finished in consecutive preliminary finals so our recruiters have had an incredibly tough time.”
But after Rhyce Shaw’s spectacular audition turned into a full-time role he said in November last year the sky was the limit.
“I have seen big jumps before. I have seen teams go from zero to high up the ladder and sustain it for 10-12 years,” he said.
“We are in it to win games of footy and ultimately premierships. I don’t shy away from that. I am not here to win coach of the year. I am here to win a premiership.”
ROBBO: BEN BROWN’S FUTURE A BIG ISSUE FOR ROOS
— Mark Robinson
Ben Brown’s future at North Melbourne is shaping up to be problematic.
At the start of the year, Brown and his management asked for a four-year deal in the vicinity of, say, $750,000-plus.
North Melbourne wanted to give the 27-year-old a three-year deal.
The impasse was parked when the AFL shut down all contract discussions, leaving Brown and countless other footballers delicately placed in terms of playing this season without any security beyond.
It’s why the AFLPA this week asked the AFL to allow contract discussions to open again, with a view to re-signing players.
It’s a massive issue for the PA and that, too, looks to be at an impasse.
When Brown’s management gets the green light to nut out a new deal, once again they’ll ask for a four-year deal.
If North baulked at that offer before the season, they certainly won’t entertain it after what has been a horror, if not embarrassing, 2020 season from Brown to date.
In fact, their three-year offer probably won’t see the light of day again.
The scenario for Brown could be a two-year offer — take it or leave it.
The absolute worst-case scenario for Brown is being put up for trade at season’s end.
It’s not such an outrageous suggestion.
How would North fans feel about that and by extension how would fans at other clubs like to have Brown roam their forward line?
The Kangas have a decision to make.
READ MORE:
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They desperately need draft picks to resurrect their list and Brown — and not too many others at Arden Street — would attract a first-round selection.
They would be considering it.
They would be negligent if they were not.
How Brown, who has kicked 60-plus goals in his past three years, finds himself in this awkward position is partly his own doing and partly how the game is being played.
No doubt, we are seeing key forwards crumble before our eyes.
Team defence means free-flowing football is restricted, which includes shutting down the switch kick to open up the ground, so clean ball to leading key forwards is rare.
Often, the big guys are asked to get high and compete for the ball down the line, or when deep compete for the kick to the pocket where clubs want a boundary throw in, so they can set up behind the play.
Slow ball movement, which has been a trait at the Kangas for much of the season, also allows opposition teams to fold back into the D50 space, meaning Brown has no room to lead.
Still, Brown has to be better.
He has to compete stronger in the air and be more aggressive against his opponents.
Brown is not a physical forward.
He is a 200cm key forward who plays like a 190cm leading flanker, and his performance against the Bombers, and in particular his opponent Cale Hooker, was condemned by Fox Footy’s David King.
“He was absolutely assaulted to the point where he didn’t want to compete,’’ King said.
“I never thought I’d say that about Ben Brown, but he virtually gave up.
“He was shifted way too easily way too often. There were times where he was trying to run away from Cale Hooker.
“To throw the towel in was incredibly disappointing. He’s been great for the club but he can’t be shifted like this.”
That is a wallop from a fellow professional footballer.
Footage of a melee after the quarter-time siren also raised eyebrows.
In it, Brown can be seen grappling with Darcy Parish and Andrew McGrath, both tiny in comparison, before 14-game Bomber Jordan Ridley shoves Brown out of the melee.
Brown should have wiped the floor with the three of them, but, again, that’s not in his make-up.
Yes, Brown’s work rate is the best of any key forward, but his ability to compete in – and win – one-on-one contests is poor.
His one-wood, taking marks on the lead, has been denied from him, as it has for all key forwards.
Without it, Brown has been a pedestrian.
HE averages 7.8 disposals a game which puts him 29th for key forwards.
HE has taken only five contested marks.
HE has only taken 22 marks.
HE has kicked seven goals in six games.
HE has been targeted 49 times, the most at the Kangaroos and the second most time in competition behind Charlie Dixon (56 times). North has kicked four goals from those targets, whereas Port Adelaide has scored 12 goals.
IN one-on-one contests, defined as two players wrestling under a high ball, Brown has not out marked his opponent once in 29 contests.
AND he has had one score assist for the year.
They are underwhelming numbers for a bloke who wants a four-year deal worth $3 million-plus.
His size also doesn’t lend himself to being a defensive force, either.
Yes, footy can be fickle and there’s a Ben Brown pile on at the moment, and Brown might be a game away, a la Jordan de Goey on Thursday night, from clunking marks and kicking a bag of goals.
But it’s not even about that.
It’s about competing with every inch of your body and mind at every contest, and being aggressive, and being harder in the moment.
Because if he doesn’t, a decent contract offer from North Melbourne is disappearing by the week.