Horace
Premium Gold
North Melbourne - 2024 Hugh Greenwood Player Sponsor
Veteran
North Melbourne - 2023 Ailish Considine and Bella Eddy Player Sponsor
North Melbourne - 2023 Aaron Hall and Flynn Perez Player Sponsor
10k Posts
North Melbourne - 2022 Aaron Hall and Flynn Perez Player Sponsor
North Melbourne - 2021 Taylor Garner and Flynn Perez Player Sponsor
North Melbourne - 2020 Taylor Garner and Flynn Perez Player Sponsor
It was easy to walk away from last nights game with a profound sense of disappointment. It struck me however that what we saw last night was a team of boys relatively speaking, playing last years runners up, a team of hardened experienced bodies, ruthlessly determined to make amends for last year.
So this morning I decided to complete an analysis just to see how wide the gap was between the two teams in terms of that experience. Some very interesting comparisons come from this in my opinion and for my part I feel much better about our future.
Prior to last night our 22 had played a combined 1442 games or an average of 65.5 games.
The Saints 22 had played a combined 2308 games or 104.9 games per player.
If you take out of that our two most experienced players, Boomer and Brady, our remaining 20 have played a combined 960 games or 48 games per player.
As opposed to taking out "You can't touch him" Reiwoldt and Milne their remaining 20 have played 1904 games or an average of 95.2 games.
Looking further at the other end of the games played, our 5 least experienced had played a combined 36 games or 7.2 games per player as opposed to their least experienced 139 games or 27.8 games per player.
Taken further our 10 least experienced had played a combined 119 games or 11.9 games per player as opposed to their least experienced 449 games or 44.9 games per player.
On every measure we were "babes in the woods" compared to the Saints. When you add in the fact that our most influential player, Drew, was missing, harder experienced bodies in Pratt, McMahon and Harding were not there to combat the older St. Kilda bodies and Boomer played arguably the worst game of his career, last nights performance is pretty much explainable.
In hindsight there was just no way in the world that we could have competed with them.
But the positives for us out of this is that in the next few years our kids are going to develop and gain that hardness and experience that will make us a very competitive outfit from around 2012 onwards. In contrast the Saints need to win a flag this year or next, and may very well do that.
Beyond then they might see themselves in a trough that will be hard to come out of quickly, given that the GC and GWS will snare all of the talent in the next few drafts.
So this morning I decided to complete an analysis just to see how wide the gap was between the two teams in terms of that experience. Some very interesting comparisons come from this in my opinion and for my part I feel much better about our future.
Prior to last night our 22 had played a combined 1442 games or an average of 65.5 games.
The Saints 22 had played a combined 2308 games or 104.9 games per player.
If you take out of that our two most experienced players, Boomer and Brady, our remaining 20 have played a combined 960 games or 48 games per player.
As opposed to taking out "You can't touch him" Reiwoldt and Milne their remaining 20 have played 1904 games or an average of 95.2 games.
Looking further at the other end of the games played, our 5 least experienced had played a combined 36 games or 7.2 games per player as opposed to their least experienced 139 games or 27.8 games per player.
Taken further our 10 least experienced had played a combined 119 games or 11.9 games per player as opposed to their least experienced 449 games or 44.9 games per player.
On every measure we were "babes in the woods" compared to the Saints. When you add in the fact that our most influential player, Drew, was missing, harder experienced bodies in Pratt, McMahon and Harding were not there to combat the older St. Kilda bodies and Boomer played arguably the worst game of his career, last nights performance is pretty much explainable.
In hindsight there was just no way in the world that we could have competed with them.
But the positives for us out of this is that in the next few years our kids are going to develop and gain that hardness and experience that will make us a very competitive outfit from around 2012 onwards. In contrast the Saints need to win a flag this year or next, and may very well do that.
Beyond then they might see themselves in a trough that will be hard to come out of quickly, given that the GC and GWS will snare all of the talent in the next few drafts.
