Coach Alastair Clarkson - NMFC Senior Coach - Coaching & Football Discussion

[Poopybum22]

Didn’t he offer the boys the choice of prioritising fitness or game style in the preseason? Believe they chose fitness, which based off our performances is hard to believe.

This is the same group of campaigners that voted in Lmac as captain. Think they shouldn’t have be rewarded too much choice.

 

[King Corey]

Yeah nah, don't buy this absolutist stuff.

The only established turds on our list are CCJ, Pink, Free and Drury (no fault of theirs that we went after them. Not slighting their endeavour, or in Pink's case his footy smarts, but they're just not very good at the level).

Other limited footballers are Lazzaro, Phillips, Taylor, LMac, Teakle, Tucker. And one of those played basically every game, and deservedly so. (Not the captain btw)

That's ten in a list of what, 44?

Everyone else has something (or multiple things) very very obvious to offer, but most of them, for various reasons (mental scarring seemingly being a big one) haven't been able to show what they can really do on a consistent basis.

The exceptions are Sheezel (prototype human being, works bloody hard), LDU (talent coming out of his ears), Jy (works hard, had consistency for two and a bit years and will get it back with a bit of fortune imo), Larkey (works hard), X (worked bloody hard on his game), and so far, McKercher (talented and believes he can take on the world and win).

At other clubs, many players are successful because of the club environment. The aforementioned players are successful in spite of North Melbourne. Because it's not the norm at North to work hard or to cultivate a strong mentality or to go about your football as if you really want a ****ing flag.

There's imbalance on the list, sure, lack of pace, lack of small forwards, and shit key position depth being glaring ones, but it doesn't mean the players are shit. Once the glue of
A: players taking it on themselves up to take the reins, push the club forward
B: players doing work on themselves to purge the belief that they're losers
C: training standards improving to an AFL standard

take place (if they ever do), the 'potatoes' that people love to flame on here are suddenly gonna look a million bucks.

Footy isn't and has never been absolute. Almost every player lifts when there's a baseline of performance. It's how Collingwood nearly beat the top team in a final with players like McCreery, Johnson, Cox, Noble, Krueger and Hoskin Elliott. Not a lot of talent amongst that lot, but it didn't matter. Problem is, we don't have a baseline, so the only players that rise up are the exceptional cases

Great post. People naturally want an easy explanation.

Choose from:
The coach is passed it
The coach got lucky / was kept in line etc at his last role
The list is shit

It's possible that it's none of those extremes and more bits of Columns A-Z.

No club barring GC is choosing players out of a completely protected little talent pot.

Geelong, Sydney, Port and now Hawthorn find useful players in all kinds of places beyond the early rounds of the draft or northern academies.

Sure clubs like these recruit well. But they're not so much more precise with it than anyone else to explain such a chasm in performance. Ollie Dempsey at North is probably erratic talent. Zane Duursma at Geelong might've been top 5 rising star.

Conversely Clarkson isn't infallible. We stay the course but it's disingenuous to claim our first 2 years have been anything but underwhelming or to glibly blame it on a "shit list" that will be fixed after another 14 drafts.

What's harder to quantify but most likely the cause of our woes is the culture, drive, ambition and ability to best utilise the talent we DO have at the club. While developing and working to a plan that times it's peak to maximally exploit enough opponents long enough to allow us to break through for success.

Before others inevitably overcome our winning system and things move on once more.

 

[The acurate one]

Yeah nah, don't buy this absolutist stuff.

The only established turds on our list are CCJ, Pink, Free and Drury (no fault of theirs that we went after them. Not slighting their endeavour, or in Pink's case his footy smarts, but they're just not very good at the level).

Other limited footballers are Lazzaro, Phillips, Taylor, LMac, Teakle, Tucker. And one of those played basically every game, and deservedly so. (Not the captain btw)

That's ten in a list of what, 44?

Everyone else has something (or multiple things) very very obvious to offer, but most of them, for various reasons (mental scarring seemingly being a big one) haven't been able to show what they can really do on a consistent basis.

The exceptions are Sheezel (prototype human being, works bloody hard), LDU (talent coming out of his ears), Jy (works hard, had consistency for two and a bit years and will get it back with a bit of fortune imo), Larkey (works hard), X (worked bloody hard on his game), and so far, McKercher (talented and believes he can take on the world and win).

At other clubs, many players are successful because of the club environment. The aforementioned players are successful in spite of North Melbourne. Because it's not the norm at North to work hard or to cultivate a strong mentality or to go about your football as if you really want a ****ing flag.

There's imbalance on the list, sure, lack of pace, lack of small forwards, and shit key position depth being glaring ones, but it doesn't mean the players are shit. Once the glue of
A: players taking it on themselves up to take the reins, push the club forward
B: players doing work on themselves to purge the belief that they're losers
C: training standards improving to an AFL standard

take place (if they ever do), the 'potatoes' that people love to flame on here are suddenly gonna look a million bucks.

Footy isn't and has never been absolute. Almost every player lifts when there's a baseline of performance. It's how Collingwood nearly beat the top team in a final with players like McCreery, Johnson, Cox, Noble, Krueger and Hoskin Elliott. Not a lot of talent amongst that lot, but it didn't matter. Problem is, we don't have a baseline, so the only players that rise up are the exceptional cases

Good post Zoomba, although a tad lite on for duds & limited players.

Probably could find room for Stephenson, Bert Nuyon, Greenwood, Shiels, Harvey, Sellers. And yes I realise we've had some retirements but we are talking about this years list and this years disappointing season.

But the real kicker is these fellas, either injured or starting out their careers.

Goater, George, Goad, Maley, Payne, Hardeman, Bergman, Archer and of course Thomas.


So adding to your 10 is another 15. SO 25/44 paints a bleak picture and explains why we're so shit.

 

[Only Forwards]

This thread makes me think about the concept made popular by Donald Rumsfeld. About the Known knowns and the known unknowns.

Known knowns

• Clarkson is the only current coach to have coached 4 premierships
• Clarkson was incredibly sought after as coach, Essendon sacked their coach for a rushed haphazard shot at him
• A program that Clarkson was a main player in not only won 4 flags but had 3 subsequent Premiership coaches work through it
• We have him for at minimum 3 more years
• We have been a basket case far beyond the reaches of just a coach
• We have basically churned the entire club, football department included within the last 3 years
• our "senior" players have had 6 coaches in about as many years
• we have been stripping out lacklustre senior players for 5 seasons.
• We currently have more high level draft talent on our list than at any point in our past
• other clubs that have done comparative root and branch rebuilds took circa 10-12 years between finals campaigns
• What Clarkson say in a press conference is different to what is said to the players behind closed doors. People can argue this, there are more than enough ITK posters on here coming back with the same sort of information for me yo place this in a known know
• The team has played unacceptable football as recently as their last 3 games
• Some players appear to have been given ultimatums this off season, shape up or f*** off.
• Broadly speaking player retention has been great

Known Unknowns

• When we are going to shift from elements of learning to cut throat about winning
• The toll of the Hawthorn Racism stuff on Clarko
• How that actually sits with the players
• When things will turn and we will play a level of consistent football that wins games
• Exactly how mentally shot our players are from so many losses
• Who within the FD provides real challenge to Clarko, specifically about things like selection and tactical accountability

Unknown Knowns and Unknown Unknowns not areas really worthy of discussion here.

 

[Spud11]

Known known: we were ratshit this year and went backwards under the master coach

Known known: he’s on $1,000,000/year to at least make this group of professional footballers consistently competitive

 

[backtothedraft]

Known known: we were ratshit this year and went backwards under the master coach

Known known: he’s on $1,000,000/year to at least make this group of professional footballers consistently competitive

There was a post to some effect like this earlier in this thread, but the benefits that we will get as a club with stability throughout the football program over the course of his contract outweigh the perceived uplift that we might get under a different coach in my opinion.

He convinced one of the best talents a football club has ever seen to sign on until 2030. Perhaps that tells as much of a story as anything

 

[The acurate one]

Known known: we were ratshit this year and went backwards under the master coach

Known known: he’s on $1,000,000/year to at least make this group of professional footballers consistently competitive

Well let's wait and see who gets the arse, I think that will tell us all plenty. We low balled Phillips and to his credit he has taken our offer.
We were more than happy for Phillips to look elsewhere.

 

[Orange Peanut]

X said Clarko told him last year to get his shit together or they would recruit Grundy to replace him.

On SM-S901E using BigFooty.com mobile app

And Chom has said publicly that he and Corr got absolutely bollocked after the Eagles game.

 

[DuckYeah]

Would he get a game for a finals team? Will he be in our flag team? Yes he's been serviceable, but so have many of our players, which is just not enough. He's filled a gap, but there aint many gap fillers in the best teams.

Are we winning a flag next year? He isn’t the final piece but I believe he could be on the bus

 

[DuckYeah]

Goater, Logue, Comben improves the backline.

Problem is all three of them are coming of various career limiting injuries.

Career limiting injuries? Smh

 

[Event Horizon]

A few people have mentioned Thomas and it reminded me one more time what we have lost. Sorry to be stating the obvious and something that has been stated many times, but I reckon if Thomas was playing this season we'd win 6-8 games just like that. So this loss can't be understated.

 

[DuckYeah]

A few people have mentioned Thomas and it reminded me one more time what we have lost. Sorry to be stating the obvious and something that has been stated many times, but I reckon if Thomas was playing this season we'd win 6-8 games just like that. So this loss can't be understated.

Absolutely. Tarryn is a superstar. Bit our noses off to spite our face. Jokes on us.

 

[TennisPlayerAndy]

Career limiting injuries? Smh

Ruptured Achilles, ACL and ruptured body.

They’re all risky.

 

[R00StaR]

The W-L needs to be close to 50/50 at the bye.

If we’re floundering at 2/3 wins, then it’s time to abort.

Thats a huge ask given the young list we have. 3 wins and no blow out would be solid. After the bye another id expect we should be close to going another gear but depends on injuries. Id think by mid 26 should start to be playing finals like footy. If thats enough to get us in or not we'll have to wait and see. But finals in 27 will be a must.

 

[Gumble Frankieton]

He was nearly a North player. Strange to imagine how differently our 21st century would have been if Eddie was a North man.

An actual Sliding Doors moment.

Meanwhile, out in the rotten carcass infested world that is Modern Sports Journalism, a certain journalist feels a momentary sense of self-doubt before he continues on writing his Sliding Doors column.

 

[zoomba23]

A few people have mentioned Thomas and it reminded me one more time what we have lost. Sorry to be stating the obvious and something that has been stated many times, but I reckon if Thomas was playing this season we'd win 6-8 games just like that. So this loss can't be understated.

In 2022, in an alternate universe, where adverse personality traits don't affect things and football outcomes depend solely on talent and work ethic in equal measure, we had the two best future players in the league at the same time imo. Horne's strengths are well known and TT was silky skill on steroids. Isn't that a funny scenario for a team that was arguably the closest to going 0-22 out of any team since that system began

 

[Event Horizon]

In 2022, in an alternate universe, where adverse personality traits don't affect things and football outcomes depend solely on talent and work ethic in equal measure, we had the two best future players in the league at the same time imo. Horne's strengths are well known and TT was silly skill on steroids. Isn't that a funny scenario for a team that was arguably the closest to going 0-22 out of any team since that system began

And unlike JHF, Thomas did want to be here...

 

[toepoker]

And unlike JHF, Thomas did want to be here...

Did he though? None of his behaviour actually suggested that was the case

 

[DuckYeah]

Ruptured Achilles, ACL and ruptured body.

They’re all risky.

Lol ruptured body? Clutching at straws there. Achilles, maybe but he’s young and treatment is advanced these days. And ACL’s dont impact like they once did. Griff came back and looked good.

 

[zoomba23]

Did he though? None of his behaviour actually suggested that was the case

He did. His return goal in the Essendon game is burned into my brain. He went nuts and the team and crowd went nuts with him. He wanted to be here, he just wanted to abuse women more. Prick that he was

 

[King Corey]

Lol ruptured body? Clutching at straws there. Achilles, maybe but he’s young and treatment is advanced these days. And ACL’s dont impact like they once did. Griff came back and looked good.

Between them they average about 20 games a year combined.

Assessing them as high risk from an availability standpoint is fact.

 

[DuckYeah]

The loss of Tarryn killed us. How good is Tarryn? He was our best player HANDS DOWN. Look at how we performed without sheezel

 

[DuckYeah]

im not over it. Our best player, no convictions, no proven allegations.. gone. We are our own worst enemy

 

[DuckYeah]

Between them they average about 20 games a year combined.

Assessing them as high risk from an availability standpoint is fact.

Strawman. Heres a strawman for a straw man. One is a player that if he was good enough to play every game would sit on 40 total. The other puts his body on the line and is subsequently sore and had a really good season, another is top 5 defender in the comp and hurt his hand. Knee was good

 

[toepoker]

He did. His return goal in the Essendon game is burned into my brain. He went nuts and the team and crowd went nuts with him. He wanted to be here, he just wanted to abuse women more. Prick that he was

It wasn't the 2 hours a week when he was actually on the ground that caused me to doubt his desire to be there