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.
