{"id":30588,"date":"2025-07-29T18:31:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T18:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/30588\/"},"modified":"2025-07-29T18:31:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T18:31:12","slug":"north-melbourne-kangaroos-problems-and-lack-of-progress-under-alastair-clarkson-in-three-years-afl-360-and-on-the-couch-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/30588\/","title":{"rendered":"North Melbourne Kangaroos problems and lack of progress under Alastair Clarkson in three years, AFL 360 and On the Couch analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"

A lack of tangible improvement at North Melbourne in year three under Alastair Clarkson continues to prompt concern after the club slumped to a disenchanting 101-point loss to Geelong last Saturday. <\/a><\/p>\n

The Roos came into this season plotting substantive growth after back-to-back three-win, 17th-placed seasons. But after 20 rounds, they find themselves in 17th spot again with just one more win than in the previous two to show for their efforts. <\/p>\n

Across the second and third quarters of its destructive Round 20 defeat, North Melbourne was outscored by 90 points; its worst differential over two quarters since 1985. <\/p>\n

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It provides a nutshell glimpse into the prolonged defensive shortfalls at Arden Street, with these key numbers continuing to tell a grim story. <\/p>\n

For points against, in the three seasons Clarkson has spent in charge, the Roos ranked 17th in 2023, 18th in 2024 and 17th this year. <\/p>\n

For scores per inside-50 against, they\u2019ve gone 17th, 18th and 17th. For intercept to score against: 17th, 18th, 17th. For clearance to score against: 17th, 18th, 18th. <\/p>\n

On whether there has been discernable improvement to report over Clarkson\u2019s time at the wheel, four-time premiership star and former Clarkson disciple Jordan Lewis told Fox Footy\u2019s On the Couch: \u201cThe short answer is no. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think North Melbourne supporters … you do need to see green shoots. You do need to see a mode in which they play \u2014 and there was probably a period this year that we could see … they started to play some OK football you go \u2018okay, that\u2019s their identity\u2019. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge with young sides is, as the season progresses, is not fatigue and not go back into skill execution errors which force you to play a messy game. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou take a big risk when you get a premiership coach down who\u2019s on a lot of money, and it might neglect other parts of your program. But listening to Alastair speak, they seem to understand where they\u2019re at. We can\u2019t see it. <\/p>\n

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\u201cI think their acquisitions, in terms of the senior players (Luke Parker, Jack Darling and Caleb Daniel), probably haven\u2019t added as much or what they would have hoped for.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brisbane legend Jonathan Brown spoke of the absence of hope for fans, saying: \u201cThe thing you want to go to the footy, as a supporter, (needing to have) hope … you walk in as a North Melbourne supporter, and you just go \u2018where\u2019s the hope? <\/p>\n

\u201c(George) Wardlaw definitely stands out, but he\u2019s got the concussion issues. I know (Harry) Sheezel and (Colby) McKercher have been there, but they just lack a bit of that for me at the moment. It\u2019s certainly going to be a challenging 12 months for \u2018Clarko\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

On AFL 360, respected commentator Gerard Whateley and former Demons captain Garry Lyon broke down the situation. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe trajectory; you want to be able to see the signs, and Saturday was frankly about as bad as it\u2019s been,\u201d Whateley said. <\/p>\n

Lyon added: \u201cIt\u2019s hard to argue with any of that, all the commentary. And Alastair Clarkson would be asking himself those questions. <\/p>\n

\u201cHis great strength is his capacity to work harder than anyone else over the journey. He\u2019s been the hardest worker, he\u2019s been the most innovative coach of the modern era … when he went through his successful period at Hawthorn, he changed the way football was played, and now he\u2019s into the next chapter of his coaching life, which is probably his last chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n

West Coast’s $24m decision! | 03:03<\/p>\n

Lyon raised examples of yesteryears of coaches who\u2019d reigned supreme in their initial eras but weren\u2019t able to achieve success later in their careers as magnet-movers. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019ve got to assess, which is hard, is to try and pass judgement on one of the all-timers,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s happened before; it\u2019s (Mick) Malthouse, it\u2019s (Dennis) Pagan, it\u2019s these great, great coaches who owned their eras and got premiership success off the back of them, who then went, for different reasons, to different clubs down towards the bottom … and their capacity to impact there wasn\u2019t what it was, understandably. And that\u2019s where we find this modern-day great (Clarkson). <\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a stubborn man, and he\u2019ll dig in … I would suggest that he has (still got the faith in himself), but he\u2019s got to prove that, and his club\u2019s got to prove that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whateley surfaced two main points of concern for the Kangaroos in their current toiling state. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s sort of two questions that they\u2019re still stuck on. One is method; we are not seeing it, he began. <\/p>\n

\u201cI do think they suffer by comparison to Richmond on that front. You should see what they (the Tigers) are building and how they want to play. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then they\u2019re going to start getting second-guessed on their recruiting, while careers are blossoming elsewhere … this is the doom loop. If you don\u2019t get out of it, it repeats on you over and over, and they\u2019re in about the third spin cycle of this. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd they would have desperately hoped that at the end of 2025, it would have been \u2018you can see what\u2019s about to happen\u2019. Now, whether it takes another year or two or three, we\u2019re not going to exit this year with that surety as you can see what\u2019s about to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A lack of tangible improvement at North Melbourne in year three under Alastair Clarkson continues to prompt concern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2095,1813,63,689,3237,19056,28888,28881,28880,27713,28882,27734,26521,10145,61,2105,8083,27717,43,19089,3231,681,19052,19080,7199,647,7804,44,2041,7204,2067,28884,677,28885,28879,28877,6858,17989,28889,28886,28876,28883,19086,41,39,42,40,2614,660,4899,28887,28878],"class_list":["post-30588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-america","tag-ankle-injury","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-brisbane-lions","tag-caleb-daniel","tag-coach-alastair-clarkson","tag-coaching-life","tag-concussion-issues","tag-dane-rampe","tag-doom-loop","tag-eagles-young","tag-four-time-premiership","tag-garry-lyon","tag-gerard-whateley","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-graham-denholm","tag-groin-kick","tag-headlines","tag-jack-darling","tag-jack-jovanovski","tag-jon-ralph","tag-jonathan-brown","tag-jordan-lewis","tag-luke-parker","tag-melbourne","tag-melbourne-demons","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-north-melbourne-kangaroos","tag-northern-america","tag-nutshell-glimpse","tag-oceania","tag-premiership-coach","tag-premiership-success","tag-prolonged-defensive-shortfalls","tag-richmond","tag-senior-players","tag-skill-execution-errors","tag-spin-cycle","tag-substantive-growth","tag-tangible-improvement","tag-toby-greene","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-victoria","tag-virginia","tag-way-football","tag-young-sides"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30588","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=30588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}