North Melbourne
Coach – Alastair Clarkson
2025 –
Points For – 13th
Points Against – 17th
Top 5 Best and Fairest
=1. Harry Sheezel
=1. Tristan Xerri
3. LDU
4. Luke Parker
5. Jy Simpkin
2025 Rising Star Noms
Finn O’Sullivan (Rnd 15)
Ins – Lachy Dovaston, Hugo Mikunda, Charlie Spargo, Blake Thredgold
Outs – Miller Bergman, Kallan Dawson, Eddie Ford, Finnbar Maley, Georgie Payne, Will Phillips, Brynn Teakle, Darcy Tucker
My Prediction
The pass mark for Clarkson was missed again last season. He has some sort of impunity to results and his reputation from Hawthorn has carried him a very long way. I would imagine the calls for change will be closer this season though without significant improvement. Five wins from a team most pundits thought was ready to rise up the ladder was not a good enough outcome.
The backline is a major headache. Pink and Comben are not going to inspire a lot of fear as a tall two. Comben goes from looking pretty good to pretty average very quickly. Their small backs look ok by reputation although they underperformed last year. McKercher looks a gun and will continue to improve whilst I am not sure either Daniel or McDonald are getting better. I think they still need a lot of work for this to be an AFL quality backline.
The midfield is harder to read. The names look great but the output doesn’t match. Sheezel at times last season looked ready as a mid then at other times looked unaccountable and outmatched. Simpkin seems to have largely avoided the same hype as Merrett despite being a captain that wanted out (playing for an irrelevant club has some benefits). LDU’s reputation has far outgrown his output but still looks like he could tear a game apart at any stage. Wardlaw is a legitimate gun with a broken body. They should be better than last season but you wouldn’t want to bet your life on it.
The forward line is all about Larkey, he is an absolute gun. Great hands and a good kick. If he played in a top 8 team he would be winning Colemans. Darling looked his age for large portions of last season and it’s not going to get better. Parker on the other hand doesn’t seem to age and for large periods of games was their best player last year. The smalls are led by Curtis who started the season really well and Zurhaar who is a medium, both in size and output (can cook a mean steak though looking at his insta).
They have one of the top rucks in the competition and he made a real difference last year. If there was one player they couldn’t afford to get injured it is Xerri who has developed incredibly well. The coach is running out of credits and we may start to see the board exploring plan b if things don’t improve this year. They look short on a solid plan and tactically look like they are lagging.
The Roos surely have to improve this year. The talented players are now a few years in the system. They don’t look remotely like a team that will challenge for finals, the gap between their good players and they poor players is just too big. They can maybe play the youth card for one more year. They should be looking at the 7-8 win mark this year which will put them in 12-14 range.
