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In Alastair Clarkson\u2019s view, it has never been harder for bottom teams to climb to flag contention, due to the compromises to the draft, free agency and the bias of gun players towards contenders.<\/p>\n
But Clarkson also makes plain that he is responsible for North Melbourne\u2019s performance and that if he cannot lift the Kangaroos back into the finals or thereabouts, then the club is entitled to move him on and find another coach.<\/p>\n
In a lengthy sit-down interview and subsequent conversation, Clarkson was sanguine about his own future. I put to him that he did not seem overly anxious about his position (he is contracted until the end of 2027).<\/p>\n
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Clarkson\u2019s Kangaroos had another season of struggle in 2025.Credit: AFL Photos<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, no. I came back here to help the footy club. [It\u2019s] nothing to do with ego, nothing to do with anything else except repay to North what they gave to me as a young fellow,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so at the point in time they tap me on the shoulder and think, \u2018Listen, we don\u2019t think you\u2019re the guy to take us forward any more. Thanks for your work. We know that … we\u2019re making some progress and done some really good things.\u2019 If they think someone else can be out there, [and] they\u2019re going to do it quicker \u2013 I\u2019m all for it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why I came back to help. And Todd [Viney, football boss] was a little bit the same. We\u2019ve worked together before, and it\u2019s just like we actually like the idea of the challenge of just taking a bottomed-out club to try to … can it be done? Especially in the current climate, can it be done?<\/p>\n
\u201cThere can be a lot of people jumping up and down, it\u2019s just like, \u2018Oh North aren\u2019t getting there as quick as you like.\u2019 Well, what do you want to do? Are Clarkson and Viney no good?<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Clarkson and Viney are no good, then get them out and get some new ones … we\u2019re just here for the club. From a personal point of view, trying to see if we can take this side from near the bottom of the ladder to back up to the top and compete again.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Todd Viney fronted the media after Clarkson took a break from coaching in 2023.Credit: Jason South<\/p>\n
Later, after exploring the lack of continuity in defence and North\u2019s defensive method, Clarkson repeated that the onus was on him, as senior coach, to lift the club. The goal was to be playing finals in two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anyone\u2019s got a problem with where we\u2019re going, what we\u2019re trying to do, this is on me as the current [coach]. Not the club or anyone else. I\u2019ve been appointed and charged with the responsibility of getting this group and our club back up to the top of the ladder.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a much, much tougher environment than has ever existed in AFL footy before. And I think all the clubs in the bottom five or six are finding it more difficult to find the levers to pull, to bring in talent and to resource your program and salary caps and soft caps and all these things.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019ve got no doubt that we\u2019re on the right track. Our goal, very clearly, is to get ourselves into the top four, but in the next two years, we want to be playing in September.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clarkson cited the Brisbane Lions as a team that had made the sudden leap, from five wins in 2018 to 16 wins in 2019.<\/p>\n
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The Brisbane Lions won just five games in 2018. Last season they won their second premiership in a row.Credit: Eddie Jim<\/p>\n
\u201cThe game is littered with teams that have jumped up quickly, looked like they were cellar dwellers and then all of a sudden [they\u2019ve made the leap]. And we\u2019re showing signs that we can be that side… we want to be playing in September in the next couple of years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clarkson said that by 2027 Paul Curtis<\/a> and Tom Powell will be 100-gamers, and Harry Sheezel, Colby McKercher and others will have 60 to 100 games. He held high hopes, too, for George Wardlaw and Finn O\u2019Sullivan.<\/p>\n Harry Sheezel is a shining light for the Kangaroos.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cAnd if we\u2019re not up around challenging for playing finals footy, we\u2019re underperforming. Let\u2019s get going.\u201d<\/p>\n This implicitly posed the question if Clarkson, whose first season at Arden Street (2023) was ruined by the Hawthorn racism saga, had extracted the most from North\u2019s list last year.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a hard question to answer because the narrative around our last year was being in games to compete more. We\u2019re certainly that … now we lost a couple of close games, drew with Brisbane \u2013 that was a good effort, but we probably should have still won that game.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we could easily have won eight games in which everyone in the competition is probably saying, \u2018That\u2019s somewhere around the mark for North at this time.\u2019 But yeah, we\u2019re bullish about where we\u2019re going, and it\u2019s bloody tough.\u201d<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n North\u2019s primary issue in Clarkson\u2019s time, judged by numbers (103 points conceded in 2025), is that they have not defended well.<\/p>\n It is a charge that Clarkson meets head on. He highlights the lack of continuity in his backline \u2013 more than 20 players deployed back in each of his four years. The experienced Luke McDonald, Aidan Corr and Griffin Logue had injuries, as did tyros Jackson Archer and Josh Goater. But Clarkson also took responsibility for the defensive method.<\/p>\n \u201cI spoke about the personnel and the lack of continuity with that. It\u2019s not an excuse. It\u2019s a fact. We just haven\u2019t had the continuity and stability that we\u2019ve identified in other clubs that has been really, really important to building premiership sides.<\/p>\n \u201cThis comes back to me as the coach, and I\u2019m happy to take that, that critique \u2013 we leak too many goals, and we have done so for three years, and that might be a combination of personnel and method. It might be a little bit to do [with the fact that] we haven\u2019t had stability in our back end, but without a doubt it\u2019s to do with how can we find the method that best suits our personnel, and that is on me.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it hasn\u2019t helped [that] as soon we\u2019re trying to teach a method, we haven\u2019t had the same blokes doing it over and over.\u201d<\/p>\n Wipe the draft, replace it with …<\/p>\n In asserting that it has never been harder for the bottom teams to lift themselves, Clarkson put on record his view that the draft is failing to equalise.<\/p>\n His radical blueprint is to scrap the draft, given the compromises with academies and father-sons, and replace it with an academy system for all clubs, without geographic restrictions.<\/p>\n The top three selections in the 2025 national draft: Harry Dean (pick No.3 to Carlton), Willem Duursma (No.1 to West Coast) and Zeke Uwland (No.2 to the Gold Coast).Credit: AFL Photos<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t just about North Melbourne. It\u2019s about West Coast Eagles, about Richmond, it\u2019s about Essendon and all those clubs that happen to find themselves [down for a prolonged period] and the competition saying, \u2018We\u2019ll give you access to good draft picks\u2019. But you deny this access to NSW, you deny this access to Queensland, you deny us access to Northern Territory, and in 12 months\u2019 time you\u2019re going to deny us access to Tasmania.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d develop academies right around the country because I think this it is the best pathway model for every kid in the country, boys and girls. The clubs would have academies.\u201d<\/p>\n Clarkson\u2019s model would not have geographic restrictions. \u201cI\u2019d wipe the draft altogether … the best system in the old VFL footy was when a club got an opportunity to have an area of the country, and you go and invest in your heartland … I\u2019m saying make the zone Australia, so anyone can get a player from anywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n In Clarkson\u2019s model, clubs could recruit players at 14, 15 and 16 years of age. But wouldn\u2019t such a system further favour wealthy or advantaged clubs like Collingwood?<\/p>\n \u201cIt would if it was a free for all,\u201d he replied. \u201cBut if there\u2019s a cap and you can only pick the best 10 players.\u201d<\/p>\n He suggested a financial cap on signing on those teenagers, adding that the best players at 14 were not necessarily elite at 18, offering the examples of North\u2019s Craig Sholl (not elite at 14) and Garry Lyon (elite at 14 and remained so).<\/p>\n \u201cYou might support that with education grants … whilst they\u2019re 14, 15, 16 years of age, they might stay at home, but probably at 18 years of age, you\u2019re making a choice about whether you\u2019ll put them on your senior list.\u201d<\/p>\n His ruminations and radical blueprint came from experiences. Hawthorn had priority picks in 2004 and 2005 that assisted Clarkson\u2019s dynastic team, in a purer draft.<\/p>\n \u201cThat has come about because I\u2019ve sat there in the job that I\u2019m doing and saying, \u2018Geez, this is a hell of a lot harder than I\u2019ve ever experienced and seen before\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n North Melbourne president, Dr Sonja Hood.Credit: Simon Schluter<\/p>\n Clarkson says the ever-changing recruiting\/draft rules made it harder for clubs to plan around.<\/p>\n \u201cSo North missed on Ryley Sanders and Melbourne missed on Mac Andrews, who they\u2019ve been developing since he was 14 or 15, and they abolish that rule for that particular year because of [Jamarra] Ugle-Hagan. Then Mac Andrew doesn\u2019t become the replacement for Steven May<\/a> and Jake Lever when he finishes up,\u201d Clarkson explained.<\/p>\n North Melbourne have been unable to lure free agents or high-value mature players because players wanted success quickly.<\/p>\n \u201cUntil you actually become a commodity, where people say they\u2019re making significant progress, and we can see where they\u2019re going to be in two years\u2019 time, but right at the moment, they\u2019re saying, \u2018Oh, we can see where you\u2019re going to be in six years\u2019 time\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n The captaincy, and why Simpkin gave it up<\/p>\n Jy Simpkin\u2019s exploration of a trade to Collingwood made his captaincy untenable. Clarkson\u2019s explanation of Simpkin\u2019s request was that the ex-skipper was \u201clooking at his football mortality and wondering, \u2018When is this all going to happen for me?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cHe had some challenges he was dealing with both on the field and off the field. Last year, the on-field stuff was more that we were playing him in a role as a high half-forward\/midfielder that, we felt, was where he was really well-suited to play. And to his credit, he tried his guts out to play that role, really, really well. But he just couldn\u2019t play it to the level either he or we would want on a regular basis.<\/p>\n Clarkson shares a laugh with Jy Simpkin at a Roos away game in Bunbury last season.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re pretty pleased with his progress there, but he just felt he couldn\u2019t read the game anywhere near as well in that spot, as opposed to playing in the midfield.\u201d<\/p>\n This year, Simpkin was slated to play \u201cmore around the footy, midfield, wing\u201d.<\/p>\n The new skipper Nick Larkey had lived through North\u2019s struggles.<\/p>\n \u201cBut he\u2019s also got this unbelievable emotional intelligence of knowing the mood of the group, the mood of the club, the mood of the wider football community,\u201d Clarkson said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a way that allows our players to be in a good spot to play their best footy.\u201d<\/p>\n Wardlaw was another intriguing player, the midfielder\u2019s progress having been stymied by repeated hamstring injuries. Clarkson saw a parallel with his former champion skipper at Hawthorn, Luke Hodge.<\/p>\n \u201cGeorge Wardlaw hasn\u2019t been able to get going. It was no different to Hodgey. When he first started, it\u2019s like he had stress fractures, he had groins, and it\u2019s like, \u2018Guys, is he ever going to get there?\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cBut he found a way. He learnt the position to play and also the professionalism around the game that allowed him to just get continuity with his footy.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re very different players, George and Hodgey. But what is very, very similar is their first three or four years of footy.\u201d<\/p>\n Clarkson revisited the vexed subject of Hawthorn, from whom he was estranged for a time after the AFL\u2019s investigation that left him, Chris Fagan and some Indigenous ex-players emotionally bruised \u2013 the coach leaving his North Melbourne coaching duties during 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was some of the toughest times I\u2019ve had to endure. But I\u2019ve had to endure other tough things in my life, too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou know, [I] lost a brother-in-law to brain cancer and I lost another brother to a car accident when I was a young fella. So, there\u2019s things in your life that you\u2019ve just got to cope with. And the footy parallel to that was what Fages and I had to cope with … but, you know, that\u2019s done and dusted.\u201d<\/p>\n Clarkson stood on the MCG for Hawthorn\u2019s 100-year anniversary in the VFL\/AFL last year, he said, to acknowledge the contribution of key Hawthorn people \u2013 John Kennedy, David Parkin, and John Kilpatrick in particular \u2013 to Clarkson and his wife Caryn.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was my way of saying thank you, back to them.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Harry](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/da0e52728c7f369e87dcc4b321138a92765152c4.jpeg\")
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