The “fizz fell out of our season” in huge losses to the Bulldogs and Hawthorn, but North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson is bullish the Roos can eventually emulate the rise of the AFL’s form teams.
After getting belted by 96 points by the Bulldogs last week, North Melbourne were flogged by 124 points by the Hawks at Launceston on Saturday in their last game of the year.
It was a disappointing end to an otherwise solid back half of the season, where the Roos secured wins over Gold Coast, Richmond and West Coast.
But Clarkson said their last quarter fadeout against the Eagles a fortnight ago in Hobart, plus the mental challenge of getting his young team mentally ready for two opponents playing for their seasons, took its toll.
“The last two weeks we’ve played some pretty good sides. These two sides are probably the best performed of the last 10 to 12 weeks,” he said.
“We dropped a game against West Coast we should have won, and it’s nearly like the fizz fell out of our season when we lost that game. Then playing two really good sides, we’ve got some sore boys and it’s hard when there’s not much to play for the last couple of weeks.
“The Dogs and Hawthorn needed to win those games to guarantee finals. Sometimes the margins are really small at AFL level, what you have to play for and what you haven’t.
“Just the spirit fell out of us, unfortunately. The Hawks have played some really good footy the back half of the year, and they showed us a pretty clean set of heels today.”
Clarkson is confident the Roos can follow the footsteps of his former team Hawthorn and start to find their feet the next couple of years.
“A lot of those lads have been around their club for five or six years. Will Day, Jai Newcombe, Conor Nash, those guys pivotal to their engine room right now have got themselves up to 80 or 100 games of footy,” he said.
“We’re on that trajectory ourselves, we’re probably a couple of years behind that. As we have seen (with Hawthorn), when you get some belief (things can turn).
“We don’t want to dismiss what has transpired in the back half of the year for us. For 10 of the 12 games we were really strong and competitive, just the fizz went out of us at the end of the year.
“It just happens in footy, I wish it didn’t. We’ll hang our hat on the progress we made in the back half of the season.”
Clarkson said they’ll look to mirror the Hawks and Dogs’ build by complementing their youngsters with some experienced heads, but admitted it’s getting tougher to rebuild through the draft.
“We know the build Hawthorn has build on. Just inject youth into the footy club and balance that really nicely with mature age guys from other clubs.” he said.
“The Dogs have got those guys too, guys who were part of their premiership and know what it takes.
“Both those sides are finding that beautiful balance between some experience in their side and that youthful energy.
“It would be a real shame if the Dogs and Hawks play each other in the first week of finals, because I think both can go really, really deep.
“We’re just tracking behind those guys probably by a couple of years. Hopefully we can add more players to our group through the draft and trades that will complement the young group we’ve got.”
Meanwhile, Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell insists he’s never put a ceiling on what his team could achieve this year as a game plan he declares has been “built to stand up in finals” is about to be put to the test.
The Hawks sealed their first finals appearance since 2018 with a brutal 124-point demolition of North Melbourne at Launceston on Saturday.
It means they will finish anywhere from fifth to seventh on the ladder depending on other results this weekend. It’s a remarkable turnaround after they started the year 0-5, but won 14 of their last 18 games to qualify for September.
The Hawks have built their game around pressure and the contest, and Mitchell is confident it will hold up in the biggest clashes of the year.
“The great challenge for us now is what’s the ceiling,” Mitchell said.
“We’ve never put one on (ceiling). We’ve always said while we’ve been building to these moments, there’s no speed limit to how quickly we wanted to achieve the things we wanted to achieve.
