North Melbourne can escape the bottom four in 2025, but it’s crunch time for a club that has failed to offer anything other than false hope for half a decade.
Coming off the bye, there’s almost an uneasy tension around a group that ought to repay the faith shown by fans and optimistic neutrals alike.
Heading into the season, some of us believed a jump up the ladder wasn’t unrealistic – this very piece lauded the recruitment of veterans in October.
The first couple of weeks were solid. The next few months were horrible. A draw against Brisbane, a victory over Richmond and three pretty good quarters against the premiership favourites in the lead-in to the bye offered hope.
They’re 11 games in and have two wins and a draw.
Getting the mid-season bye out of the way early means we have three clean months of footy to see what this club is about and whether Alastair Clarkson can create an identity, or if this entire thing is just another season of going through the motions for the Kangaroos.
They’ve felt identity-less, but that’s sort of Clarkson’s thing early on.
We’re halfway through his third season in charge, we’ve seen players thrown all over the ground, we’ve seen some have shorter leashes, others have longer ones.
The coach tends to have his favourites, but he likes to fill roles, not pick players. Developing and emphasising strengths is a key component of a Clarkson-driven rebuild and is generally the sign of impending overall improvement, which can come swiftly.
North Melbourne’s been the second-best clearance team all season, and certainly the best in the last few weeks.
It’s not particularly close around the ground either, they’re first to the ball more than any team in the league, and it’s unsurprising given the dominance of Tristan Xerri being the headline act.
Despite again being third-last in average inside 50s per game, their efficiency going forward is much improved. They were last by far in terms of being able to generate shots once inside 50 in 2024, and it wasn’t particularly close.
They’re still below league average now, but only by a percentage point, with numbers comparable to Brisbane.
That’s a huge leap, contextually given the long periods of stifled development at the club. It’s somewhat aligned with the clearance game, not that they’ve ever been high-scoring in the modern era of struggles, but they generate more scores out of stoppages than all but two clubs.
They themselves are one of only two clubs to score more from stoppages than turnovers, a huge change from previous seasons.
Paul Curtis and Jy Simpkin celebrate North Melbourne’s win over West Coast. (Photo by Daniel Carson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Luke Parker has been a genuinely transformative player in that area in a season where Luke Davies-Uniacke has perhaps not been as excellent as previously.
Parker’s decisiveness in the middle has rubbed off on the likes of Tom Powell, the maligned skipper and even Xerri.
The offensive improvement has been marked, even if imperfect. Their overall pressure has completely dropped off, although their tackling inside 50 has improved slightly.
The real gamechanger has been Paul Curtis, who’d almost be in All-Australian contention at this stage of the season if not for games missed due to suspension.
The overall imperfection comes from the reliance on one player. Curtis is one clear atop the club’s leaderboard for score involvements per game, he’s leading North for (average) shots, goal assists, and he’s almost tripling the next best player per game for tackles inside 50.
His strength is a huge feature of his game, and it allows him to be a threat in the air and on the ground. He has become a remarkable figure for the team while easing the burden on Cam Zurhaar to be the sole x-factor.
Defence is certainly an overall issue, but it’s slowly improving. They were bad in 2023, they were bad in 2024, and shock horror, they’re bad defensively in 2025.
They concede the most shots per inside 50 in the league, their slow, retentive style of play encourages pressure from the opposition, which in turn they concede heavily from forward half turnovers.
In terms of positive signs, last season, the opposition were able to average a mark with 25.5 per cent of their inside 50s, which is down to 23.4 this season.
In their last three matches, all encouraging performances, that’s down to 22.1 per cent, right at league average.
Compared to last season, North Melbourne is also right around the middle of the pack for allowing handballs received, the opposition is finding it a bit tougher to just run through and play a quick style.
Similarly, they are allowing their opponents a few less disposals, a few less metres gained per disposal, they’re making it a little harder for the opposition to take the game on by restricting the difficulty of kicks slightly, and they’re forcing a few more clangers.
Again, we’re still talking average at best across the competition and mostly below average, but these are all small statistical improvements that have occurred all season and have become more prevalent in the last three matches they’ve played.
All of this is structural, more than anything else.
Charlie Comben is the shining star defensively and is amongst the league’s best defenders both in his intercepting and actual defending, and it’s puzzling that Riley Hardeman wasn’t a regular from the start, but in reality, all the improvements have been designed to be system-based.
Remember, Clarkson likes to select based on filling roles, not to fit players in.
This week, Harry Sheezel mentioned that it’s more likely that there’ll be more positional stability shown in the second half of the season, which is absolutely necessary and, if you’ve followed Clarkson-coached teams, tends to be a sign that he thinks they’re ready to have more of an impact on games.
Sheezel himself has been one of the biggest victims of this in 2025. He hasn’t reached his best yet, although you’d imagine it’s difficult having been thrown around in all three lines of the field, as well as being the target of a media witch hunt at times.
The thing about throwing magnets around is that it’s a useful teaching mechanism until it becomes a hindrance. Stability is important to success. Now’s the time.
Other strong performers come from the likes of Dylan Stephens moving into a slightly deeper role recently to great effect, the aforementioned Powell has really flown under the radar in terms of developing that inside-outside ability to act as a multi-tooled threat in the middle, too.
George Wardlaw embodies the spirit and ethos that Clarkson would love to defend through the middle and say what you want about the end product of Simpkin’s disposal, but his commitment to the defensive side of the game, while being a willing offensive force, is vital to this team.
Paul Curtis ???? Jacob Konstanty!
???? Watch #AFLNorthPies LIVE on ch. 504 or stream on Kayo: https://t.co/tEbIJrg77g
???? MATCH CENTRE https://t.co/khtUKz7BGI pic.twitter.com/J62GbFJ7q3— Fox Footy (@FOXFOOTY) May 24, 2025
Some wonder why the likes of Jacob Konstanty and Finnbar Maley/his replacements have featured at senior level offensively, but the tackling and marking offerings have been influential. Clarkson’s yet to find the right strings to pull for Colby McKercher’s second-year blues, but the talent itself is undeniable and steps up in moments.
Caleb Daniel’s probably the biggest question mark; he has perhaps been the least risky of all designated kickers in the entire league, and even then, he isn’t executing spectacularly. Whether you can switch him and McKercher, while deploying Sheezel as a defensive midfielder with the knowledge that Stephens is playing good, running footy out of the backline, that might be something to monitor.
It’s hard to really say that there’s even a switch to flick at North Melbourne for Clarkson, given the trust that has evaporated in this club over the past five or so years.
Yet the improvements have been minor, but building and the numbers have begun to increase in a meaningful way.
It’s not a team that becomes some sort of world-beater; their inability to maintain pressure and execute consistently over four quarters isn’t something structure can solve in a short period of time.
With the bye behind them, though, it’s time to see what can emerge from this team.
They’ll circle plenty of games as chances; West Coast, Carlton, Melbourne, Sydney, St Kilda and Richmond as live chances to prove their worth, while attempting an upset or two.
If you, too, are a believer in what has been developed this season, it isn’t obtuse to think that in 12 games, they can aim to win close to half of them.
History indicates otherwise, but I think we’ve watched enough television to know that that’s not a reliable indicator for future performance.
It all starts this week, in a home game in Bunbury against the local Eagles. Both teams are on the up, neither team will want to lose.
North Melbourne has a chance to escape the bottom two for the first time in six seasons by the end of 2025.
They might end up pushing to escape the bottom four if Clarkson’s plans come to fruition.
