AFL 2020: A dozen injuries and five losses pile pressure on North Melbourne

North Melbourne will initiate a review of its mounting injury list that has hit several of their stars and and hampered the team’s performance on the field.

Majak Daw and Ben Brown compete at training. Picture: Michael Klein

A review is looming as North Melbourne’s injury toll continues to mount and star midfielder Ben Cunnington’s issues move from his back to his legs.

Kangaroos football manager Brady Rawlings said the club was “not happy” having 13 players unavailable on the back of a five-game losing streak with five matches to play in the next 22 days.

Gun youngster Tarryn Thomas had season-ending surgery on Thursday and star midfielder Cunnington remains sidelined for the foreseeable future after his back issues created with his leg strength.

The unenviable situation prompted North chairman Ben Buckley to open a letter to members conceding performance had been “disappointing” but throwing his full support behind first-year coach Rhyce Shaw.

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“We are 151 years old and have confronted challenges before and have always found a way to dig deep and come out the other side in better shape,” Buckley said.

Rawlings said the club was happy with the process behind selecting captain Jack Ziebell despite him badly re-injuring his hamstring last week against Richmond.

But he conceded they needed to address their long injury Iist.

“Cleary we’re not happy with our availability … we’ll be doing something about it,” Rawlings said.

Shaw said he and his staff asked questions “all the time” about injury management and on-field performance, and that there had been some “spanners thrown in the works”.

That includes speculation about the future of out-of-form, and out-of-contract, forward Ben Brown, who Shaw said he’d had some “open conversations” with amid reports the club was shopping him around.

North Melbourne has a long injury list which includes captain Jack Ziebell. Picture: Michael Klein

“We’ve probably got a bit more important things to worry about. It doesn’t worry me an I don’t think it worries Ben,” Shaw said.

“He’s really keen to get going, to contribute to the scoreboard, and the team, and that’s all I can ask of him.

“But he’s pretty much like the rest of the team. If we keep working, I think it will turn for us.”

Shaw said the injury list and compressed fixture had become a major talking point at North who need to get some “bodies back” to get through it.

“We’re not going to have the same team through that time. We are going to have to have guys ready,” Shaw said.

“You’re going to have to change the team every week. We have two four-day breaks back-to-back. If we have to rest one or two blokes, then we have to do so.”

Cunnington’s back issues had created issues with the strength in his quad muscles and the club has to correct that problem before the dual-best and fairest winner can play again.

And Majak Daw is “not quite there yet” according to Shaw who said more time in scratch-matches was needed to get to full fitness after such a long-time out and other injury interruptions.

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