WHAT’S GAMBLING REALLY COSTING YOU? Set a deposit limit. For Free and confidential support call 1800 858 858 or visit gamblinghelponline.org.au.<\/p>\n \u201cFor North Melbourne fans, that would\u2019ve been a sickening watch; incredibly frustrating. You feel sorry for the Kangaroos fans, who have watched this for six years,\u201d the Herald Sun\u2019s Jay Clark told Fox Footy\u2019s Super Saturday Live post-match coverage. <\/p>\n Dual All-Australian and two-time Kangaroos premiership player David King pondered the machinations of the club\u2019s game plan and lamented its inability to adequately defend. <\/p>\n \u201cThis (the North Melbourne rooms) would be an awful place to be, at the moment. It\u2019s a tough one, because when you watch them play, it\u2019s kind of difficult to work out what they\u2019re trying to execute,\u201d he began. <\/p>\n \u201cAre they handballing when the options are available, and then run and gun? Or is it take territory and get numbers to drop of ball? Is it a mix of both? I don\u2019t know what they\u2019re doing defensively; that\u2019s just not working at all \u2014 40 (Geelong) scores tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n The Cats scored 27 times from 58 intercepts on Saturday night, exemplifying the ease of which they were able to transition and punish the Roos on the counter. <\/p>\n \u201cThey just smashed them; they walked through them. The amount of times Jeremy Cameron was out the back by himself, and it\u2019d be uncontested possession, uncontested possession, goal,\u201d King continued. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d love to ask Alastair Clarkson \u2018what are you trying to achieve?\u2019 Show us what it should look like, and then we can at least enjoy the ride. Because we just go from week to week and not see it. We have seen it in patches throughout the year, but we\u2019re not seeing it now. <\/p>\n \u201cI know the ruckman\u2019s (Tristan Xerri) not there, I know Nick Larkey\u2019s not there, but that shouldn\u2019t have as big an effect as what it does on their ability to stop the opposition moving the ball full length of the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n Baz gets into it with cheeky North fan | 00:55<\/p>\n Serious questions continue to be asked of the Roos\u2019 direction under Alastair Clarkson in the third year of the four-time premiership coach\u2019s reign, with the club benefitting from top picks for the better part of the past six years. <\/p>\n In 55 games under Clarkson, North Melbourne is 10-44-1. The club has finished 17th on the ladder in consecutive seasons and currently sits 17th with four games left to go this season. <\/p>\n Asked when the pressure on Clarkson genuinely gets turned up, King answered: \u201cIt\u2019s a great question; it\u2019s hard to answer. I think you have a blind faith in the club that the decision-makers will get it right. <\/p>\n \u201cWords are cheap; it\u2019s really hard to just listen to the same conversation over and over and over. It\u2019s a tough place to be, there\u2019s no doubt about that … third year in, a penny for his thoughts, is he able to do what he once thought he could do with this group? Are there any doubts there?<\/p>\n \u201cYou walk off the ground tonight, you have to doubt your own plan. You\u2019ve got (Jack) Darling, (Luke) Parker and (Caleb) Daniel to the club to try and stiffen up with a bit of seniority; that doesn\u2019t look like it\u2019s working as well as it probably should.\u201d<\/p>\n Classic Scott lauds whole team showing | 05:05<\/p>\n North Melbourne fielded eight former top-12 draft picks against Geelong, as King declared the club\u2019s issues didn\u2019t revolve around an absence of talented players. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a talent issue; it\u2019s a system problem,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can be really brutal and say \u2018it\u2019s coaching\u2019, right, but it\u2019s also performance of that system. <\/p>\n \u201cWhere\u2019s the disconnect? Are the players not understanding? Are they not prepared to work hard enough to ensure the system works? I think they\u2019re good enough, and I don\u2019t think they\u2019re that young that they can\u2019t compete defensively. That\u2019s not really a talent issue. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m the same as all those people in the room and all those watching on, I don\u2019t understand the system, because I see so many flaws in it, so many holes in it. <\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t see it; it\u2019s not consistent enough to say \u2018this is their identifiable brand\u2019. And I think when you see 150 points against, I think even they\u2019d say \u2018you wouldn\u2019t be able to see it tonight\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Ken: ‘Didn’t wave the white flag’ | 08:24<\/p>\n Speaking post-game on Saturday night, Clarkson, who lamented glaringly obvious deficiencies in contest, clearance and territory, made it a point to highlight the discrepancy in experience between the sides. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Geelong forward line versus the North Melbourne backline, just see the void that sits there in terms of just experience and exposure,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd I don\u2019t want to make excuses for our players, but it\u2019s where we\u2019re at, though. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd we\u2019re giving these young players some exposure and opportunity, and in our back end in particular, we\u2019re going to be left very, very vulnerable down there against a formidable forward line if we couldn\u2019t control the middle of the ground as well as we\u2019d like. And Geelong was too good in that space.\u201d<\/p>\n The Roos fielded the second-youngest team in the competition in Round 20, with eight-game key defender Wil Dawson among those in royal blue and white tortured by Cameron and the Cats, who licked their lips each time they entered forward 50. <\/p>\n \u201cEveryone will look at win-loss and all that sort of stuff, and making progress \u2014 and even if it is just win-loss, we have made some progress,\u201d said Clarkson in his press conference. <\/p>\n \u201cBut we\u2019ve had three performances that were well below our best, which (were) the Carlton game in Round 6 here, the Hawthorn game about a month ago down in Tassie, and tonight. <\/p>\n \u201cBut outside of that, we\u2019ve been much more competitive than what we were last year, winning more quarters and being in more games at three-quarter-time than we had last year.\u201d<\/p>\n Suns smash Lions in QLD derby | 02:06<\/p>\n But while Clarkson continues to preach that non-linear progress continues to be made at Arden Street, the Roos\u2019 list management\u2019s choice to trade away the club\u2019s first-round pick this year has come back to bite hard. <\/p>\n Last November, North Melbourne traded its future first-round pick to Richmond to secure the No.27 selection \u2014 key-position player Matt Whitlock, who has played one game in his debut season. <\/p>\n \u201cI think they thought they would be further progressed, because they did trade that pick away,\u201d Clark said on Fox Footy. <\/p>\n \u201cWould they have traded that No.2 pick away if they thought they were going to finish second-last on the ladder? No way. They thought they would be up the ladder; they thought they would improve, that\u2019s why they gave that pick away. <\/p>\n \u201cSo, it tells you that they thought they would be better than they\u2019re at; that\u2019s really clear.\u201d<\/p>\n The Roos are currently slated to make their first draft choice this November at No.20, holding a pair of picks at the top of the second round. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Questions continue to be asked of North Melbourne\u2019s on-field identity after a \u201csickening\u201d 101-point loss to Geelong on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,14405,2095,64,63,689,55,639,12923,1818,24320,24323,15832,24314,24319,10031,24304,24311,18664,13659,2105,24312,3231,19125,12141,7484,24301,24309,24303,647,24305,2041,2067,677,24315,24310,24302,8016,668,24322,6858,3247,24300,24308,85,24307,24313,24321,24316,20439,24318,24317,2614,660,4899,24306,19121],"class_list":["post-24622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-alastair-clarkson","tag-america","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-chris-scott","tag-david-king","tag-debut-season","tag-draft-gamble","tag-draft-picks","tag-eight-game-key-defender","tag-failed-draft-gamble","tag-first-round-pick","tag-flag-credentials","tag-four-time-premiership-coach","tag-game-plan","tag-geelong-cats","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-identity-crisis","tag-jack-jovanovski","tag-jay-clark","tag-jeremy-cameron","tag-ken-hinkley","tag-key-position-player","tag-list-management","tag-matt-whitlock","tag-melbourne","tag-nick-larkey","tag-north-america","tag-northern-america","tag-oceania","tag-on-field-identity","tag-point-loss","tag-post-match-coverage","tag-premiership-player","tag-press-conference","tag-result-lays","tag-richmond","tag-robert-cianflone","tag-running-riot","tag-second-youngest-team","tag-sports","tag-suns-smash","tag-system-problem","tag-system-works","tag-talent-issue","tag-talented-players","tag-territory-battle","tag-uncontested-possession","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-victoria","tag-virginia","tag-wil-dawson","tag-young-players"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
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