{"id":312505,"date":"2025-11-27T16:20:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T16:20:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/312505\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T16:20:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T16:20:13","slug":"north-melbourne-great-david-king-heaps-pressure-on-coach-alastair-clarkson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/312505\/","title":{"rendered":"North Melbourne great David King heaps pressure on coach Alastair Clarkson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kangaroos<\/a> great David King has heaped pressure on his old club’s coach Alastair Clarkson<\/a> ahead of the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

North Melbourne have finished in the bottom four every season since 2020, and haven’t played finals since 2016. <\/p>\n

Clarkson has been at the helm since 2022, and has struggled to pull this young team off the canvas.<\/p>\n

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One of the great coaches of the 21st century, Clarkson won four premierships with Hawthorn, before joining the Kangaroos. <\/p>\n

When asked who needs to go to the next level for the Roos to improve in 2026, King pointed the finger squarely at the coach.<\/p>\n

\"Kangaroos<\/p>\n

Kangaroos coach Alastair Clarkson.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

“The only person who needs a breakout year at North is the coach,” the dual North Melbourne premiership player said on SEN Breakfast.<\/p>\n

“Everyone is talking about the players, and who needs to do this and who needs to do that – but at the end of the day it’s a huge year for Alastair Clarkson.<\/p>\n

“Fourth year in – we all know about the first year and the difficulties there, but the bottom line is four pre-seasons – you need to see a return.<\/p>\n

“There’s got to be decisions made ongoing with footy clubs. I think the North Melbourne fans are just waiting on the coach to impact this football club.<\/p>\n

“There’s only one game next year that is on free-to-air TV and that’s Good Friday. From a marketing point of view you’d have to question where it sits in 2026.<\/p>\n

“And from a football point of view there hasn’t been a lot to celebrate.”<\/p>\n

Despite another bottom three finish, North Melbourne did not have a top draft pick this year, having traded it to Richmond for a pair of picks in the 20s in 2024.<\/p>\n

They were also quiet in the trade period, making no moves of note.<\/p>\n

Outside of Clarkson, they will be betting on internal improvement from their young playing group to escape the bottom of the ladder in 2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kangaroos great David King has heaped pressure on his old club’s coach Alastair Clarkson ahead of the 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-312505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312505","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=312505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}