{"id":542163,"date":"2026-03-15T15:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T15:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/542163\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T15:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T15:07:08","slug":"grounds-for-optimism-at-north-melbourne-as-emerging-talents-give-glimpse-of-rosy-future-afl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/542163\/","title":{"rendered":"Grounds for optimism at North Melbourne as emerging talents give glimpse of rosy future | AFL"},"content":{"rendered":"

For most of his tenure at North Melbourne<\/a>, Alastair Clarkson\u2019s eyebrows have been arched in a kind of perma-frown. The bigger the deficit, the steeper the arch.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not as though his team has been completely hopeless. Most of the time, they\u2019ve tried their guts out. They\u2019ve just been incredibly frustrating. They\u2019d won 11 games in three years heading into the weekend\u2019s clash against Port Adelaide. They were 11-1-57 since Clarkson took over. In press conferences, he preaches patience, the long haul, the future. But it\u2019s the eyebrows that keep the score \u2013 two hairy registers of shanks, turnovers and towellings.<\/p>\n

There was a three-minute patch at the end of the first half of Sunday\u2019s 17.11 (113) to 9.13 (67) win where the eyebrows flatlined and the Roos finally looked like a serious footy team. It netted three goals and was a snapshot of where and why there is ground for optimism \u2013 the blunt instrument of Tristan Xerri, the propulsion of Luke Davies-Uniacke, the quick and clean hands of Harry Sheezel, and the continual improvement of their crop of young, high draftees. The onslaught continued after the main break, with three more goals in 10 minutes, at which point the result was forgone.<\/p>\n

It was by no means the marquee game of a rather dubiously cherrypicked round of \u201crivalry\u201d matches. But it was crucial that North showed something. Earlier in the week the club president, Dr Sonja Hood, wrote a letter to North Melbourne members. It may as well have been addressed to Clarkson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe message to the entire playing group this year is simple,\u201d Hood wrote. \u201cThe \u2018potential\u2019 phase is over. We aren\u2019t looking for brief flashes any more. We are looking for a standard that honours the emotional and financial investment that our members and supporters make every single year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Any of those members heading to the game via tram or train could have read extensive interviews with the North coach in both the Herald Sun and the Age. We learned that Clarkson has taken up beekeeping. We learned that in the week the Hawthorn racism scandal broke, then AFL<\/a> CEO Gillon McLachlan said to him, \u201cJust talk to Dills [Andrew Dillon, AFL general counsel at the time] and all this will be resolved\u201d \u2013 a neat encapsulation of how the AFL do business.<\/p>\n

And he told journalist Jake Niall: \u201cIf they think someone else can be out there, [and] they\u2019re going to do it quicker, I\u2019m all for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The streetfighter who yields to no one was noticeably absent in both interviews. He sounded like a man who had mellowed, a man at peace with his bees and the realities of building a list from scratch.<\/p>\n

But Sunday was the first proper glimpse of the team he has been assuring us is ready to emerge. They\u2019ve always had talent and spirit but at Marvel Stadium they demonstrated that they may finally be a team with a coherent system, a team that can defend, a team that can live up to what the president demands in letter form. The next five games are against West Coast, Essendon, Carlton, Brisbane and Richmond. They\u2019d consider themselves a chance in at least four of those, and the way Brisbane\u2019s going they\u2019d be half a chance in that one as well.<\/p>\n

Alastair Clarkson celebrates the victory with Jack Darling. Photograph: Joel Carrett\/AAP<\/p>\n

The best football of round one came on Saturday, when seven of the leading nine teams of 2025 were scheduled to play and when, by the usual stroke of genius, there was no footy on free-to-air television. In particular, Sydney\u2019s opening quarter was the equal of their third term the previous week, and superior to any other quarter from any other side so far this year.<\/p>\n

In method and in application, their game against Brisbane at the Gabba in August last year was instructive. Errol Gulden notched up his usual 30 or so touches that day, most of them perfectly weighted and incisive. He was the key to their vast improvement in the final third of the 2025 season. They operated at a totally different tempo to how they\u2019d played up until that point under Dean Cox, and for much of the John Longmire era. It was bolder and more ballistic, and it was all on display at the SCG again on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

But they\u2019d trade that win for a fit and available Gulden, whose shoulder was yanked out of its socket. He was coming off the best pre-season of his life, was in slashing form in all the scratch matches, completely obliterated Carlton to kick off the season and backed it up against the reigning premiers on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Gulden is training to be a pilot. He has the spatial awareness, the even temperament and the precision I want in my airmen. \u201cYou just can\u2019t think about footy when you\u2019re up in a plane \u2013 otherwise you\u2019d be in a bit of strife,\u201d he told AFL.com\u2019s Cal Twomey. But he might be in a bit of strife now. And presumably he won\u2019t be practising take-offs or lacing out full forwards for a while.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For most of his tenure at North Melbourne, Alastair Clarkson\u2019s eyebrows have been arched in a kind of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-542163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542163","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=542163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}