You have to lose to win

Heartbreak.

It's a theme that has run deep through the North Melbourne camp over the past five years.

Supporters have watched their side snatch defeat from the jaws of victory time and time again. 

Since 2013, North Melbourne has been involved in 15 games decided by five points or less. They currently sit at 4 wins, 11 losses. Half of those victories have been in 2018 (two point victories over Sydney and Bulldogs) without a loss.

In a season that has been all about exceeding expectations, is this the next piece in the North Melbourne puzzle?

North Melbourne in games decided by 5 points or less (2013-Round 14, 2018) 
2013: 0 Wins, 5 Losses (Geelong, Hawks, Eagles, Crows, Carlton)
2014: 0 Wins, 1 Loss (Brisbane)
2015: ----
2016: 1 Win (Dees), 0 Losses
2017: 1 Win (Dees), 5 Losses (Geelong, Freo x 2, Bulldogs x2)
2018 (so far): 2 Wins (Swans, Bulldogs), 0 Losses

The Roos' inability to get across the line in close contests has been a widely talked about topic over the last few seasons. What could've been top four (2013) and top eight (2017) finishes instead left the club out of finals contention and left to wonder "what if".

While we are yet to learn if North is really on the road to overcoming these mental roadblocks for good, 2018 has been a great starting point... none better than Saturday night's thrilling victory over the Western Bulldogs.

With the previous two encounters between the clubs coming within three points (Good Friday) and one point (Round 14), 2018's clash reached the heights set last season.

The Dogs opened the game brilliantly, playing sensational football in the first half and challenged North to rise to the occasion. The Bulldog's found endless space and took the ball down the field under minimal pressure. They lead at every change, including a three goal lead going into the main break.

The Dog's challenged and the Roos responded, led sensationally by its biggest names.Shaun Higgins was damaging against his former side, amassing a game high 32 touches (22 in the second half) and kicking two third quarter goals to ignite the Roos. Ben Cunnington was vital in the contest, Ben Brown was back to his best booting five goals and captain Jack Ziebell's three goals, including the match winner, inspired his teammates to victory. Todd Goldstein's 42 hit outs were complimented by 20 disposals, seven marks, three tackles and three inside 50's - one of his best and more complete performances of the season to date. 

The leaders stood up and many others played their part. The Roos' unlikely hero came in the form of Majak Daw. While Daw has been playing some good footy since his move down back this season, his game reached a new level against the Dogs - his final quarter arguably the best performance of his career. With three enormous marks, he stood up when the game demanded it of him. He was spoiling, he was tackling and he physically imposed himself on the game, too.

The Roos claimed victory with 20 seconds left on the clock, thanks to a manic passage of play which saw Ben Brown toe poke the ball to Ziebell, who picked it up off the deck and snapped truly to pull his side over the line.

It was Brown's decision making in that moment which won North Melbourne the game. Opposed to Mitch Wallis 45 seconds earlier which could've locked the game away for the Dogs.

From heartbreak in the same fixture last season, to euphoria 12 months later it's a result North fans once only dreamed of seeing. The Roos have now won its last three games that have been decided by less than a goal and is slowly piecing together another piece of its puzzle. It might just be the start, but they're finding ways to win.

For a supporter base that really has seen it all, for once the roller coaster of emotions is travelling at a consistent high.

The roar that erupted at Etihad Stadium in the dying seconds of Saturday night's victory symbolised the heart of the North Melbourne faithful - the belief that the Shinboner Spirit would prevail strongest of them all.

To dream the impossible dream?

What a season 2018 is turning out to be.

The tale of North Melbourne's season took another remarkable turn yesterday; notching up another victory at Blundstone Arena in Hobart and taking their season W/L tally to 5 wins and 4 losses.

At the end of round nine, North Melbourne is one victory away from matching it with their total win tally in 2017. For a side that was largely tipped to take home the wooden spoon this season, they are certainly sticking it to critics and commentators thus far in 2018.

On Saturday afternoon, it was the Giants who fell to North by 43 points at the fortress, despite taking a five point lead into the main break.

In the same fixture last season (Round 3, GWS v NM in Hobart) the Giants walked away seven goal victors over North. They are now the last team to have both defeated and lost to North at Blundstone Arena.

All the focus was on big man Ben Brown, who stunned his hometown crowd in a dominant five goal display in the third quarter. While there's been a lot of speculation surrounding his form over the last two weeks, Brown became the first player to reach 30 goals for the season and extended his lead at the top of the Coleman leaderboard.

But Brown didn't play a loan hand up forward, with Waite, Wood and Ziebell chipping in with four, two and two goals respectively.

Waite was arguably the best player on ground, his four goals complimented with 22 touches, seven marks, two clearances and two tackles.

We can talk about all the usual suspects - Higgins was a class act through the centre of the ground, Jed Anderson's season just keeps on getting better, Jy Simpkin showed a little bit more of his superstar potential and Ben Jacobs, despite a quiet game, still finished with 10 tackles and five clearances.

But for Todd Goldstein, it was the return to form all North Melbourne supporters had been waiting for.

The 2015 All Australian ruckman, who is set to play his 200th game next weekend in Perth, wound back the clock and produced his best performance in over two years.

He finished with 39 hitouts, 17 disposals (12 contested), six tackles, eight score involvements, five clearances, and the game-sealing mark and goal in the final term.

His decision making under pressure, particularly in North's attacking 50 was the difference in his game and his influence around the ground is exactly what North fans had been missing from Goldstein for so long.

It seems, that slowly and surely the tale of North Melbourne is coming together.

A lot of things are going right for the club and they are making the most of every opportunity.

Already defeating the likes of Hawthorn and Sydney at the SCG, North secured its first victory against the Giants since 2015 and the team is now in a good position to make a push towards the top eight.

Of course, it's only round nine and a lot of things need to continue going right for the Roos but you could almost argue that no matter where they go from here, North Melbourne is going to finish off 2018 as one of the biggest success stories of the season.

There was a lot of talk about North at the end of last season failing to catch a big fish (in other words, failing to lure in Josh Kelly or Dusty Martin) but forget to mention two important things:

1. There are at least four footballers on North Melbourne's list who, at this point during the season, should be considered stars of the game. Ben Brown, Ben Cunnington, Shaun Higgins and Robbie Tarrant all play football at the highest standard and are consistent performers week in and week out.

2. AFL is a team sport and while one, maybe two individuals can really influence a team, there are 20 other men out there who need to pull their weight as well. Carlton's Patrick Cripps is a perfect example of this - at age 23 he is quickly becoming a superstar of the game, but with few of his teammates stepping up to the plate, it's left Carlton 1-8 so far this season.

So North is really doing a good job. We've seen a lot of brilliant things from players that we haven't seen before. Jed Anderson a prime example of this and the addition of Billy Hartung has been important for both the himself and club. Trent Dumont has taken his game to another level, as has Ryan Clarke and Shaun Atley.

It seems like just yesterday I spoke out about the treatment of North Melbourne in the media, and how our season needs to be about us - win, lose or draw. It seems like that message was heard loud and clear. In the two point victory over Sydney, the talk was all North Melbourne. The thrilling 10 point loss to Richmond, all the talk again was about North Melbourne.

So when is it time to dream the impossible dream? Is North Melbourne a realistic chance to play finals?

For me, it's still to early to tell. Once we reach the bye weekend, there will be a clearer picture in front of us. North only play one of the next three games in Melbourne, against the Lions in round 11. They play Fremantle in Perth and the Cats in Geelong on either side of that clash. If North can win at least one and go into the bye an even ledger (6-6), then they are more than a chance at playing finals.

Following the break, North Melbourne only play two games away from Melbourne/Hobart. Of the 10 remaining games, the Roos still face Gold Coast, Bulldogs x 2, Essendon, St Kilda and the Lions again - all of those games seems winnable from where we currently stand.

But the beauty of football is the unpredictability of where the results will go and how the rest of this season will play out.

That unpredictability has certainly worked in North's favour thus far and we only hope it continues for the remainder of 2018.

Start making our season about us.

When you think about North Melbourne and season 2018, there weren't really any expectations. After a disappointing 2017, there was a general acceptance of the rebuild amongst supporters and many expected this year to follow a similar script of the last. The view was echoed by experts and outsiders, who penciled North into 18th spot on that ladder and tipped their first wooden spoon since the early 70's.

But what happens when the reality doesn't meet expectations? Did no one inform North Melbourne that at the end of round five, they should not be in the top four with the second best percentage (135.2%) in the competition? Why did their defence decide to have the best start to 2018 of any team (321 points scored against, the lowest at the end of round five)? Why is this star-less list playing some fantastic football as a team?

When things don't go as expected, a sense of panic settles into media street and now no one really knows what to make of North Melbourne... so rationally, their success stems from everyone else's failure.

Let's start with Good Friday.

Following the round two clash with St Kilda, all the heat was on the Saints. Maybe they’re not as good as everyone thinks? This game was so poor, neither side should be playing this Good Friday fixture.

*Just on that... Both ANZAC Eve and ANZAC Day games were rather tedious viewing for the general AFL supporter but we didn't hear about Melbourne, Richmond, Collingwood or Essendon under threat to lose their time slots now did we? 

So despite the 52 point margin (which, might I add, all came in a second half onslaught) St Kilda is the one and only reason North won that day. The top eight fancies may not be as good as we think and that’s the reason for the win. Glad we could clear that up.

It was much of the same two weeks later. In round four, North played Carlton in the "wooden spoon clash" under lights at Blundstone Arena. This time, Carlton were to blame for making North look so good. All the talk was about how poor the Blues performed and how on the whole they've been pretty poor in 2018. HOWEVER they did play a sensational game against the reigning premiers in round one, and nearly knocked off second placed West Coast in round five. But those performances aside, their poor start to the season is why North won by 86 points.

So if the win on Good Friday was about an underwhelming Saints outfit, and round four against Carlton was about a really underwhelming Carlton outfit, one would assume that North defeated both sides heavily because of coincidence... or because of issues the opposition have... and because of expectations we had on both of these clubs that may not be met in 2018. But whatever the case was, it had absolutely nothing to do with North Melbourne?

Round Five seemed to change things a little.

Alastair Clarkson is a football genius and the transformation between 2017 Hawthorn and 2018 Hawthorn must be seen to be believed. Injuries haven’t been kind of late, but injuries aren’t the reason they lost the round five clash against North.

It was that opening half which sent shock waves through the league. The intensity was there and pressure mounted on Hawthorn in every part of the ground. Todd Goldstein was unstoppable in the opening quarter and set up countless goals from his silver service to the midfield. Brown, Waite and Ziebell dominated. Terry Wallace said that first half was the best performance of 2018 so far and he may not be wrong. The crowd was deafening, it was hard to believe the crowd was just shy of 28k.

In the third quarter, Hawthorn looked like they were about to record one of the biggest comebacks in history and when Shaun Higgins and Ed Vickers Willis went down within 20 seconds of each other I thought we were done for. But to North’s credit, down to two rotations and a limping Shaun Atley, they steadied the ship and recorded one of their best victories in a very long time.

It was the one that made everyone stand up and notice.

Plenty of good things have been said about North after the win against Hawthorn. So many, in fact that it now seems there have been other factors that contributed to the victories against St Kilda and Carlton. Maybe they aren't as bad as we thought they would be? Maybe... Maybe Not. But whatever happens from here on out, North Melbourne should be the only side accountable for North Melbourne's season. It's really not that hard of a concept.

There's been one exception to the rule (so far) this season: North's round one clash with Gold Coast in Cairns. Why anyone would schedule a football match in Cairns in late March is beyond me. Even more baffling, the game went ahead despite majority of the game being played underwater.

My North Talk co-panellist Matty Oliver summed it up perfectly. He said: If a bigger club (along the likes of Richmond, Essendon or Hawthorn, for example) were scheduled to play in those conditions, the game would've been called off.

Not enough credit was given to either side for 1. Completing the game without anyone dying and 2. Both coming to Melbourne the following week and winning... That's a tough ask after those conditions, and North did so with just a six day break.

There's certainly a bright side in a season of no expectations and flying under the radar, like our round three loss against Melbourne. After 17 wins in a row, it was almost a given we would finally fall. But the margin was just six goals and North remained pretty competitive throughout so that was pretty good. The best part about this game is that North was in control and responsible for their actions. For example, we were smashed in the clearances which was a big factor in the loss. That was rectified the week later against Carlton and against Hawthorn, too.

I am not sitting here asking every media personality and AFL fan to rate us in the top 8, or the next premiership challengers because we're not.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m the first person that would welcome a 2018 finals campaign... but that’s not what this is about.

The reality is, that if North Melbourne is as bad as everyone predicted pre-season, their football would be ugly, they wouldn’t have won more than two games and those losing margins would’ve been much greater than they’ve been so far. 

North only won six games in 2017, but lost a further five by a collective 14 points. People forget these things when it’s convenient for them. 

There isn’t much else about North Melbourne that needs to be said. Critics (and you’ll always have those) will blow every single comment out of proportion to make supporters seem delusional and completely unaware of what 2018 has in store. There's always been this obsession with suppressing the success and relevance of North Melbourne, and the more they come into the frame, the more outsiders start to panic.

But you need to let the club write it's own script for 2018, whatever it may be. We don't want a Spiritless St Kilda, hopeless Carlton and injury-plagued Hawthorn to dictate our season.

At the end of the day, we just want our season to be about us. Let North Melbourne's 2018 be about North Melbourne and not about everyone else who has potentially contributed to our success.

What we've done right and wrong so far, and for the remaining 2018 is up to North Melbourne and North Melbourne alone.

Yes, it’s really that simple.

Am I a Shinboner Yet?

I sat at Arden Street during the JLT series, awaiting the start of North Melbourne and Hawthorn. A short time before the opening bounce, my attention was drawn to the screen. So it began, our new membership campaign featuring captain Jack. It highlighted his career from junior football to taking over as captain of North Melbourne. Throughout, re-visiting the theme of what it is to be a shinboner, and if he has lived up to that title.

While North Melbourne have presented successful membership campaigns in the past, none of them moved me, or were as relatable as the one I had just watched. Once it hit the internet later in the week, I watched it a few times again. I actually felt a shiver through my spine - It is easily the best I have ever seen.

Within the North Melbourne Football Club, being named a 'shinboner' is up there with the highest of honours.

Translate the word Shinboner - it highlights ones loyalty and passion for the club, integrity and respect as a person and dedication, grit and hard work on the field.

With Jack Ziebell presenting this simple question to us, the simple answer is yes.
In 2015, prior to the beginning of the Syd Barker Medal, the re-signing of Sam Wright and Jack Ziebell was announced. Wright with a two year contract extension (keeping him at North until the end of 2018) but Ziebell was the talking point. There were already whispers that he would take over as captain in the coming years, and then a five year deal pretty much locked that in place. A Roo until the end of 2021, a Roo for life. In a time where football loyalty is hard to come by, this was outstanding news.

But for now, back to the campaign. It is brilliant and through Jack's growth as a footballer it genuinely captures what it is to be a Shinboner.

I felt the need to blog this, to draw attention to the new era we are about to enter. Once again, there has been a yearly prediction that North will slide, however it's time to toughen up and prove the doubters wrong.

Find your shinboner spirit, and get ready for what promises to be an exciting season ahead.

They've Done It

"Hansen goes back as cool as you like, as cool as Larry Emdur. And they've done it."

For the first time under Brad Scott, and for the first time since 2008, North Melbourne had made the finals.

It was a fairly inconsistent start to season 2012, however North bounced back from their mid season bye better than ever, knocking over most teams in their way. As they made a surge towards the top eight, it was round seventeen that would ultimately become the defining match of the season. A nail bitter against Richmond: North walking away four point winners, and four points closer to finals contention. It was this victory that saw North jump back into the eight and they would stay there until September, seeing finals action for the first time in years.

The game was outstanding, it was a well fought battle and both teams gave it their all. You know a North game is good when Bruce is excited about it. It had everything. Tough at the football, plenty of goal kickers, an electric atmosphere - it was mouth watering.

The worst thing about being at this game, was the scoreboard at the MCG. You see, there was a minute left on the clock and the scores were 98-103 in favour of North. There was a ball up right by the Richmond goals, and the footy fell in the lap of Shaun Grigg (thanks to some super Ivan Maric tap work) but the kick missed. It took the scores to 99-103, less than a minute to go. Now whoever operates the scoreboard at the G' either thought Grigg had kicked a goal, or pressed the wrong button because the scoreboard showed up 104-103. So here we all are, well aware that Shaun Grigg has missed and North were still in front but the scoreboard told us otherwise and a wash of panic ran through me like nothing before. At the final siren I went to cheer but I was so confused I has no idea what the actual score was and if we had won the game. I feel like I wasted a bit of post game celebration, because there was rather a sigh of relief when the North song came on rather than excitement. For those wondering, not long after the North song began to play was the scoreboard changed. The final score: 99-103

I think the game saving passage of play was Lindsay Thomas. His entire career he's been criticized for his selfishness, and while he took a turn in his career following that horrid form of 2011, to this day no one will let it rest. With two minutes to play, Richmond were on the rebound out of defense, and Thomas dived over the boot of Luke McGuane to smother the kick and see the ball go out of play. It was brilliant, it was desperate and the defensive element of Lindsay Thomas' game has constantly shone through since that moment. It was inspiring and most definitely a game saver.

But Lindsay wasn't alone in North's bid to take home the win and the four points. With 40 seconds on the clock, Nathan Grima got his hands on the ball and belted a kick in the direction of the North goals: it landed lace out in front of Daniel Wells who just took the ball and ran. Another smart move and another fight to keep the game in North's hands. When Drew Petrie couldn't mark the Daniel Wells' kick into the 50, Richmond managed to re bound the ball up to the centre square. When Ellis miss judged a kick to Bachar Houli, Leigh Adams dived on the ball and fisted it away along the ground. Despite a history of shoulder troubles and numerous reconstructions, Adams put himself on the line to clear the ball. "Terrific stuff," as Dennis called it. It sure was: that final minute of play was absolutely outstanding.

I have touched on this game in a previous article, when I wrote about Drew Petrie being a match winner - this was one of his finest. Five goals in the final quarter (As a team, North kicked 6 goals in the final term) and seven for the game. He monstered the opposition: grabbed everything that came in his direction and kicked a bag. You always knew that at his best, Drew was unstoppable and this was no exception. This performance would stand out as one of his finest individual performances, and really shine a light on him as the match winner.

I have watched a lot of football over the years - from my TV to the MCG and this is up there amongst my favourites because IT WAS JUST SO GOOD. It is a game I can watch over and over again and never get sick of. It boasted an incredible entertainment factor and the result was just perfection. It wasn't quite up there with the emotions of a final, and it doesn't hit home quite like some of the classics through the 90s, or those amazing comebacks from the days of Dean Laidley.
But it was damn good.

The heart, the significance and the way it played out. After watching so many replays over the off season, this was on high repeat. One of my favourite games of all time... in fact, I may go watch that final quarter just one more time.