AFL R24: North Melbourne vs Gold Coast Suns Review – 2023 season truly down the drain

I would like to say I’m shocked but being a Suns fan keeps you from really believing you’re the favourite for any game, it’s a shame the players didn’t feel the same way. They thought North would roll over once the Suns got a lead, but they did not. It may seem like hyperbole considering how the early years of  this club went but that was truly one  of its worst losses ever. The Suns were expected to at least challenge for finals this year and have already beaten North by 40 this year. The Kangas’ are one of the worst single-season teams in the modern history of the sport and have only been competitive in about 5 of their last 20 games. Their best midfielder is injured, Zurhaar is injured as is the co-captain, Luke McDonald. And the Suns made them look like a legitimate football team. I can understand how a top 8 side like the Blues can come back from 40 points down but letting North Melbourne do that is a disgrace.

It’s a real shame to see a squad fail to take pride in getting the job done. It was so clear that once they got the lead they relaxed and North Melbourne completely took over, and it took till the last 10 minutes of the 4^th quarter for the Suns to react. Anytime the Roos won a centre clearance they seemed to take a mark inside 50 and whenever the Suns went inside 50 it would rebound straight out and the Suns’ defence would be caught running back to their own goal trying to find their opposite man.

The Suns have given up 100 points 11 times out of 14 losses and have only put up a century of points three times themselves. On this occasion it was down to Collins losing his matchup with Larkey in about 90% of contests and the Kangas rebounding like Collingwood whenever the Suns tried to find any of three big key forwards, who again failed to impress. Collins has had more than his fair share of tough outings this year and I’m not sure why. It looks like he may be playing too far off his man, he doesn’t have any recovery speed so if the ball comes inside 50 fast and low he has little chance of catching up. They had their 2^nd lowest pressure factor of the season and it showed on field. The Suns failed to apply enough pressure to the ballcarriers to force high, pressured kicks and Collins didn’t or couldn’t body up Larkey. King also opted not to give him any help despite the dearth of serious threats beyond the big man. He put Andrew on him far too late in the game for it to matter.

The third quarter as we have seen often this year was where the game was lost, the Suns scored just two to North’s 6 and the Suns were again left with too much to do in the last quarter. The 50/50s went North’s way because they got numbers to the contest. The Roos had I think 6 goals from 10 or 11 inside 50s in the quarter, the ball was coming in fast because of the lack of pressure and the backline wasn’t organised enough, losing sight of players and getting beat by forwards with barely 10 goals to their name all year.

Lemmens, Budarick, Macpherson, Johnston and Ellis will all have to have strong preseasons to get a chance net year because that showing could potentially be a career killer for any of them.  Although based on the internal competition at the Suns, Hardwick may have to play them whether he wants to or not. It didn’t help that Ballard again couldn’t mark it for toffee. He has a had a serious slump in form for the last 6 weeks or so. I can’t put it down to anything specific but teams do appear to be planning for him especially, so maybe he needs to learn how to deal with how teams are countering him. Add that to the list of jobs for the coaching staff this summer.

The inability of the midfield to win consistent clearances was really disappointing if I were to bet on any aspect of this game going well it would have been the clearance battle, but there were huge stretches where North seemed to be running the show. Granted Matt Rowell had an incredible game, winning 11 clearances and 22 contested possessions. But Fiorini and Davies particular who pitched in regularly today didn’t hold up well. Fiorini has basically guaranteed he’ll be starring in the 2s for the rest of his contract, while Davies has yet to progress beyond the average stoppage play we’ve seen from him pretty much since he debuted. He has to develop a point of difference that makes him valuable as a differentiation from Flanders, Rowell or Miller. Maybe he just has to run with Touk all summer and just develop a massive running tank somehow, because his stoppage work won’t get him in ahead of Anderson, Rowell, Flanders, Miller, Humphrey or Swallow next year.

The clearances they did win were not efficiently used as usual. Casboult, Chol and Burgess did not look like an AFL standard forward line. Chol is an almost good player. He’ll get to a good position or get to the ball first and then he’ll either fumble it, try to step his defender and get tackled or make the exact wrong pass too often. The occasional well-executed bit of forward craft hasn’t made up for the missed chances this year and it will be interesting to see what Hardwick decides to do with him back on his list for two more seasons.

Burgess sealed his fate as a permanent reserves player. He didn’t have any impact on the game today. Hopefully this doesn’t ruin his confidence and he can go on to win us the VFL before the season’s over. Casboult didn’t do a bad job at getting the ball to ground but North always outnumbered the Suns at ground level and were able to rebound fast. Playing three slow talls is only effective if they mark the ball and the Suns only took 8 marks inside 50 to North’s 22 despite Larkey being the only serious target on paper. I wonder how Hardwick will address this net year, he pretty much has to play King and Lukosius but another tall would likely compromise the pressure-style he’s gunning for. Casboult may have do some convincing in the offseason or be prepared to play down back or in the ruck to get game-time.

It’s likely a couple of players who featured in this game won’t play again for the senior side and I can’t say I’ll miss them. It’s not nice going into the offseason with such a bitter taste in the mouth but maybe its for the best. It gives Hardwick and the footy department more reason to decide very carefully how to approach next season and prioritise getting a guaranteed level of performance out of the gameday squad. They will be under no illusions that the list is already set to compete against the best. Oh and congrats to North on winning the second pick at least they can draft Curtin and not worry about losing McKay now.