{"id":71942,"date":"2025-08-16T05:05:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T05:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/71942\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T05:05:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T05:05:09","slug":"the-unwanted-record-north-melbourne-kangaroos-are-desperate-to-avoid-when-they-play-richmond-tigers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/71942\/","title":{"rendered":"The unwanted record North Melbourne Kangaroos are desperate to avoid when they play Richmond Tigers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou\u2019d hope we\u2019d improve quite a bit, given the cattle we\u2019ve brought in and another year in these young kids, but it\u2019s hard to say,\u201d Thursfield said at the time. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to back ourselves in a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was the equivalent of Carlton\u2019s trade with Adelaide seven years ago, when the Blues\u2019 then-list manager, Stephen Silvagni, swapped future first-rounders with the Crows to get back into the 2018 draft at No.19 to select Liam Stocker.<\/p>\n

Silvagni declared they viewed Stocker as the sixth-best player in the class. Stocker played 28 games in four seasons before Silvagni\u2019s replacement as Carlton list boss, Nick Austin, delisted him at the end of 2022, only for the ex-Blue to join Silvagni at St Kilda.<\/p>\n

It was a similar story with Thursfield, who said they felt Whitlock was \u201caround the mark\u201d of the top 10 in the 2024 draft, while noting many key-position players tumbled.<\/p>\n

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The Roos could limit the damage and leapfrog both the Tigers and Bombers into 15th place, if they win their final two matches of the season and other results go their way. But regardless, Richmond have done well out of the deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a risk with both those things,\u201d Yze said this week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether Matt Whitlock ends up playing 250 games; it could [look] the other way. Right now, it looks like we might win out of that deal, but when you look at the Kangas \u2013 they would have felt that they\u2019re going to [climb the ladder in 2025]. They\u2019ve been in a lot of games this year, and they\u2019re obviously improving.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose things happen every year, so you probably can\u2019t look at the result of that until 10 years\u2019 time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why cohesion matters<\/p>\n

Richmond have already won more games this season (five) than North Melbourne have in any season since they parted with 14 players \u2013 excluding Will Walker, who they redrafted \u2013 at the end of 2020.<\/p>\n

Like the Kangaroos, the Tigers are rebuilding, and that went into overdrive last year when they made 10 list changes between delistings, retirements, free agency and trades. Yze is in his second year at Richmond since replacing triple-premiership coach Damien Hardwick.<\/p>\n

\"Richmond<\/p>\n

Richmond coach Adem Yze has led the Tigers to five wins in his second season at the helm.Credit: AFL Photos<\/p>\n

This is all important when introducing Gain Line Analytics (GLA), a sports and corporate consultancy company that has developed a data-driven model that illustrates team performance is strongly linked to cohesion.<\/p>\n

Company co-founder, and general manager of sport, Simon Strachan defines cohesion as \u201cthe objective measure of understanding between teammates\u201d, which includes \u2013 but is not limited to \u2013 games played together; weekly team selection; and even coaching changes.<\/p>\n

GLA, which consults many AFL clubs and has a strong association with rugby and rugby league teams as well, uses this data to develop team in-season cohesion markers, or scores.<\/p>\n

Strachan said GLA\u2019s data showed that teams with a higher score in this metric tended to outperform rivals with lower levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe AFL tends to have the longest build cycle of most professional sports,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich is why teams going through a rebuild phase take a long time to be truly competitive \u2013 and why if teams are not patient through a rebuild; they tend to be stuck in an ongoing recruiting cycle, never being able to develop competitive cohesion markers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richmond\u2019s cohesion score in round one was 5.12, compared to North Melbourne\u2019s 6.37. The competition average at that stage was 9.13.<\/p>\n

\"Harry<\/p>\n

Harry Sheezel is a key member in North Melbourne\u2019s rebuild.Credit: AFL Photos<\/p>\n

The Tigers have recorded a double-digit score in all their past eight games \u2013 peaking last week at 15.46, ahead of the competition average of 15.34. The Roos reached double digits for four straight games from rounds 13-16, but their score plummeted in the weeks since as injuries piled up.<\/p>\n

Richmond\u2019s season-high marker coincided with Tim Taranto and premiership stars Tom Lynch and Nathan Broad replacing first-year trio Jonty Faull, Luke Trainor and Tom Sims.<\/p>\n

Strachan is concerned about North Melbourne\u2019s rebuild, based on their cohesion markers, given they recorded higher scores under David Noble in 2021 than Clarkson this season. Four years ago, the Kangaroos started the season at 3.52, but their final 11 games ranged between 10.82 and 13.8.<\/p>\n

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Successful rebuilds that GLA tracked, such as reigning premiers Brisbane Lions and 2025 ladder-leaders Adelaide, showed consistent cohesion growth across several years.<\/p>\n

The Crows and Roos finished second-last and last, respectively, in the COVID-19-shortened 2020 campaign, but GLA data demonstrates how Adelaide\u2019s team in-season cohesion increased significantly as North\u2019s stagnated in the years since.<\/p>\n

\u201cNorth Melbourne bringing in Alastair Clarkson has so far not created any significant difference to the club\u2019s overall cohesion,\u201d Strachan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is very difficult for a coach to get high levels of performance out of a low cohesion team.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven Clarkson in his last year at Hawthorn [in 2021] was working with a low cohesion environment \u2013 and the results reflected this. The greatest benefit of Clarkson for North Melbourne is not his coaching ability, but the confidence to give him time to build.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why Roos aren\u2019t bounding up ladder<\/p>\n

North Melbourne and West Coast are the only clubs to not record a single top-eight scalp in either of the past two seasons. Richmond, who came last in 2024, secured one in each of those years.<\/p>\n

The Kangaroos drew with Brisbane in round nine, but this is a damning statistic for Clarkson and his Roos, who joined forces ahead of the 2023 season.<\/p>\n

They have struggled to score as a team, with only one reliable goalkicker \u2013 star forward Nick Larkey \u2013 while ranking 15th or worse in average points in each of Clarkson\u2019s three years at the helm.<\/p>\n

Champion Data considers the two key scoring sources to be from turnovers and stoppages.<\/p>\n

North have made little-to-no improvement in those areas under Clarkson. They were 17th in per-game differential for both in 2023, 18th in each last year, and currently are last in scores from turnover differential and 16th in the stoppage equivalent.<\/p>\n

The Roos\u2019 actual differentials have barely moved either.<\/p>\n

The Tigers were 17th in those scoring sources last season, and remain on that ranking in scores from stoppages in 2025, but have improved to 15th in scores from turnover, while reducing their differential from minus-21 to minus-18.4.<\/p>\n

\"George<\/p>\n

George Wardlaw is one of North Melbourne\u2019s most promising players.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Clarkson believes North Melbourne are making strides. His consistent line, which he repeated on Friday, is that they are in \u201ca lot more games\u201d this year.<\/p>\n

The Kangaroos have played nine matches decided by 16 points or fewer, winning three of them, losing five and drawing another. In 2024, they featured in eight contests decided by 19 points or fewer, for three victories.<\/p>\n

As for Richmond, Clarkson does not think Sunday\u2019s result will be the best gauge of which club is rebuilding better.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhat really excites us is the sides like Adelaide and Brisbane Lions, who have been on the same journey as us,\u201d Clarkson said. \u201cAdelaide aren\u2019t quite there yet, but they\u2019re on top of the ladder and looking really good, [and] Brisbane took seven or eight years to get from the bottom to the top.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know what the formula is, but it\u2019s a difficult track, and there\u2019s no guarantee that you\u2019re ever going to get there. What we can guarantee is we\u2019re trying our best.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone will like to think that whoever wins this game is on track to get there a little bit quicker than the other, but it\u2019s over a long journey rather than a short one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cYou\u2019d hope we\u2019d improve quite a bit, given the cattle we\u2019ve brought in and another year in these…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71943,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-71942","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\/71942","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=71942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71942\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}