The Footy Boss: An in-depth look at everything North Melbourne
North Melbourne has taken plenty of midfielders at the draft in recent years and while some have questioned those calls, Brad Lloyd says you simply cannot have enough good players.
North Melbourne is on the lookout for a new captain after Jy Simpkin pursued a trade that didn’t eventuate.
The Kangaroos face a tricky choice whether to elevate a young captain, while they might have been glad to miss out on a last-minute trade move for Charlie Curnow.
SIMPKIN STAYS PUT
The big news out of a quiet period was Simpkin.
He seemed to have wanted to play more through the middle of the ground instead of the wing but North was strong about the talent it has in the middle in the likes of Harry Sheezel, Luke Davies-Uniake and George Wardlaw.
In the end, Simpkin has a contract for four more years and was captain the club and the offer from Collingwood was not going to get the deal done.
Roos football GM Todd Viney was honest and direct after the trade period when he said it was unlikely Simpkin would remain captain.
I thought Simpkin was brave and showed courage and leadership post-trade with the social media post he put out.
He acknowledged his leadership position may take a step back, but also there was no bad blood between he and the club.
For what could have been a messy situation, my respect for Simpkin grew for the way he followed up at the end of it all. The club’s messaging was sound as well.
Simpkin had a challenging year and it just shows you the pressure that captains are under. If you are skipper of a battling team, all is not rosy.
It appears North will change captains.
In the end it is not always up to the club’s administration, it is normally a very thorough process that goes into both players and staff to choose a captain and that process will be removed of emotion because a bit of time will pass before that happens, normally in the back-end of pre-season
The Kangas will have some decisions to make on the style of captain they want.
They have someone like Harry Sheezel, who seems like he will lead the club at some stage but the question will be whether he is ready, given he is 21.
I have always admired Nick Larkey for his loyalty and he speaks well. He seems like a connector to supporters a bit like Max Gawn is at Melbourne.
He has been a star player who hasn’t had huge supply to do what he has. He is a captaincy option.
The most recent example of a very young captain was Jack Trengove at Melbourne, who was 20 when he was appointed.
Ideally with a club that is still building, you appoint a mature player who can weather the storms.
If it’s the obvious solution it is one thing, but 21 is a very young age to be the captain of an AFL club that is still developing.
That is where a co-captaincy model or choosing a more senior player to take the reins over the next couple of years could be the best way to go.
Simpkin wasn’t the only captain who looked at a new club this year, with Zach Merrett eyeing Hawthorn and Oscar Allen landing at Brisbane.
That shows the challenges of retention. Captains are normally the better players at the club and are made captains for a reason through their leadership.
Those three captains that looked into moving on have been in struggling teams that have had difficult years.
They are all players where strong, stable clubs that are near the top of the ladder saw an opportunity as well and made attractive offers to these talents.
It was notable to me that North Melbourne valued Simpkin far higher than Collingwood’s offer of a future second-round pick.
Given the two captains that needed to be traded – Simpkin and Merrett – rather than depart as a free agent – Allen – didn’t move, it shows there was a bit of a “captaincy tax” this trade period.
The club that the captain was looking to move on from appeared to value the player higher than his destination, given the weight of being a leader at a club and how that can be viewed in and out of the club.
It appeared the price only went up when those players were the captains of their club, even if it is likely neither of them will skipper in 2026.
In the end Collingwood would have needed a first-round pick in the discussion to get a deal done for Simpkin.
I was surprised to read reports North made a late play for Charlie Curnow at the end of the trade period.
If that is accurate, I don’t think that would have been a fit for any party really for Curnow to leave Carlton and head to North. Curnow is a player who will start next year aged 29, and North’s draft capital should be spent on younger, emerging players.
North has Larkey already in the forward line and I don’t think it is the right fit for them.
It was a quiet trade period for North, who sent Finnbar Maley to the Crows.
Charlie Spargo came in as a free agent. As a premiership player who has 108 games under his belt, he will give them a bit.
North will look to improve through the young talent they have and can bring in through the draft. They see their under-21 talent as pretty special so it will continue to be a build.
They’ve got a lot of young, fresh enthusiastic players who seem happy at the club and are building and have belief they will be a good team despite having a tough run of results in recent years.
Players like Wardlaw, Colby McKercher, Sheezel, and older players like Davies-Uniacke and Larkey who are in a good age bracket.
There is enough young belief in the direction of where they are going and the players know where the club is at.
They just need to keep making sound decisions and adding more talent.
While the men’s team has faced its challenges in recent years at North Melbourne, the women’s team has been brilliant and are heavy favourites to be AFLW premiers again.
Having such a strong women’s team is a great thing for the club. They are the envy of the competition with their program.
Through AFLW coach Darren Crocker, president Sonja Hood and CEO Jen Watt, they seem to have enormous integration through the club and I think they would walk really tall as a football club.
The dominant women’s team would help keep some momentum going. The burst they would get from the women’s going so well would certainly rub off and inspire the men’s program as they head into another pre-season.
LIST OVERVIEW
List changes – In:Charlie Spargo (Melbourne).
Out:Finnbar Maley (Adelaide), Miller Bergman, Kallan Dawson, Eddie Ford, Brynn Teakle, Will Phillips, Darcy Tucker, Geordie Payne (all delisted).
List gaps
There was a bit of discussion about North Melbourne needing a key defender but it has five key backs on its list and wanted to back them in.
The Roos are going to find out a bit more about those younger backs like Wil Dawson, Charlie Comben and Matt Whitlock next year.
The Roos were interested in Jai Serong as he left the Hawks, but he chose the Swans.
Leek Aleer came up as a key defensive option during the trade period after an expected move to St Kilda fell through.
Leek was in Europe at the time and I’ve always been shocked how players often travel overseas during the trade period.
For North it became quite difficult to do anything on a trade front when he was overseas and you can’t do a medical or a proper interview.
It is obviously their spare time but if you are a player, I would be ready to go and available to deal with a prospective club unless something is absolutely locked in.
Full availability is critical as a player because there might have been an opportunity there if he was in the country.
Otherwise you minimise your chances. It is too professional at clubs these days to take players on without face-to-face meetings and medicals.
In extreme cases clubs would probably fly staff out to see players.
It might not have gone anywhere for Aleer, but you still should be available to the market if you can. Trade periods can be unpredictable and you never know what door may open.
List strengths
North Melbourne has drafted plenty of midfielders and some have questioned if the Roos have gone too hard in that area.
But with where North is at you just can’t have enough good players.
Ideally they would have another top pick this year and keep stacking good players.
With where their picks are now, starting with 25 and 26, they have the ability to take more of a need.
They may even decide to package up those two picks and get up the order to try and get a higher calibre player or a young tall.
At this stage of their list build, I wouldn’t be worried about taking too many mids, you can’t have enough of them.
DRAFT HAND: 25, 26, 46, 57
The standout part of North’s draft order is the controversial trade last year of trading out their future first in a deal that led to them drafting Matt Whitlock, and getting a future second-rounder from Richmond.
That first-round pick is currently sitting at No.4 in the draft and is in Richmond’s hands.
While North would have valued Whitlock highly, the market suggested he was rated in the mid-20s.
There must have been two factors with it all. The Roos probably thought they would rise up the ladder this year and they rated the player highly.
It was a shock at the time and time will tell how that trade ends up.
It was quite high-risk, leaving North without a high-end pick this year to keep stocking its list with future A-graders.
SALARY CAP
Given clubs have to spend 95 per cent of their salary cap, North may have to front-end some deals to get there.
They have paid some big contracts to retain some players, such as Davies-Uniacke.
No player manager is going to knock back money being received up front.
Normally a club budgets to spend 100 per cent of its cap so it may keep front-ending the contracts and pushing that forward.
From a cash flow point of view, players will have to manage their money because they will be getting less later on. It’s normally spread across a number of players so it is not one player receiving it.
It is usually done through a senior group of players who are on long-term deals and are reliable players. You don’t want to front-end a contract and then that player leaves soon after being paid their money upfront.
HIGH-PERFORMANCE CHECK-IN
The Roos had the youngest list in the competition last year so clearly have to tailor their high-performance program for inexperienced players and bodies.
The more pre-seasons the young bodies get into them, the more durable they are going to be.
They will be starting to get to a stage where they will have had a number of summers into their high-end players but the more years you can stack that durability the better for their fitness and list availability going forward.
THE COACH’S BOX
North Melbourne added Shaun Hampson and Darcy Macpherson to its development team this off-season as the Roos continue to put resources into growing their young list.
Every club has the same soft cap to use but may approach the make-up of their coaching panel differently.
The coaching spend is guided by the senior coach and the way he would like to set up his coaching structure and is closely supported by the football manager.
The first impact on that spend will be the senior coach and how senior that role is, they have a high-end coach in Alastair Clarkson and then it comes down to how many line coaches the senior coach would like.
Some would like 3-4 line coaches and a senior assistant or you can go quite lean there and have three line coaches and tip the rest of their resources into development.
It is a juggle every club has to handle.
FRONT OFFICE
North Melbourne made the decision before last season to “sell” two home games and play them in Western Australia, moving games that were previously in Hobart.
That is the commercial challenges and realities of running a football club.
The Kangas would debate the pros and cons in that and weigh up where they are at in their football cycle.
Those decisions are normally made by the board and CEO but certainly there would be engagement and discussions with the football department to go through the pros and cons of it all.
These decisions are made in the best interests of the entire club. Football will always come first because it is a football club but it may well be in the club’s best interest longer term that the rewards of those deals come back in some way.
Originally published as The Footy Boss: An in-depth look at everything North Melbourne
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