The following is a letter to members from North Melbourne coach David Noble.
Thank you, to all our members for your loyalty this season. Your unwavering support has been enormous this year and has given us both inspiration and energy to pursue continuous improvement week in, week out.
To break the membership record is a testament to your support, that reaffirms your belief that we are heading in the right direction.
When I first stepped into the role as head coach, my focus was on a growth mindset and continuous improvement. We all knew there were challenges ahead in the coming season but to be honest, that’s what was exciting about it – the unknown and the uncovering of new discoveries.
In one of my first interviews with the club, I said that when a club is appointing a head coach it’s not just about finding the coach to fit the club, but the club to fit the coach and with common values we have built a system of belief, trust and honesty through growth mindset.
Our first win took some time and arrived in Round 9 against Hawthorn at UTAS Stadium. It was a real arm-wrestle of a game, which lead to pure elation post-game. For our boys to work so hard and finally have that feeling of winning is something fundamental to our continual development. We sang our club song loudly, staff and players alike celebrating our first win together. I’m sure Tom Powell, Charlie Lazzaro and Lachie Young will remember their first win for the club, as will I. Moments like these, you cherish forever.
Round 12 marked the bye round and a time to reflect, recharge and reset our focus for the second half of the year. We challenged and educated the players, took time to study the game plan and those learnings started to show in our games. Consistency in our effort saw us start to win some games and test ourselves against some of the best teams in the competition.
We’ve seen a host of exciting young talent debut this year – Will Phillips, Tom Powell, Charlie Lazzaro, Eddie Ford, Phoenix Spicer and Charlie Comben. Add in the advancement of our two-to-four year players and the growth of our group has been both visible and energising. Our leaders this year have played a massive part in our learning and improvement, so it would be remiss of me if I didn’t thank them for their guidance, driving standards and growth in their own game; Jack Ziebell, Jy Simpkin, Luke McDonald, Robbie Tarrant, Ben Cunnington and Kayne Turner, thank you.
Our environment and culture remains one of the most important aspects of our football club and we will continue to work on making it a place where our people want to come to work and improve and strive to be the best they can be. While we have made a terrific start, there is work to do through a growth mindset and continuing to chase improvement.
We have started planning for next year and beyond, reviewing our structures, systems, data, and how we want to play in contests, in attack and in defence. Coordinating all of our reviews from players, to coaches to department reviews will give us a great snapshot of what 2021 looked like.
Our attention will soon turn to the draft and trade period where we hope to add to our exciting playing group. With the number one pick with our other picks in the AFL national draft we will look to maximise the best available talent we can.
We have missed seeing and hearing you all at our games and can’t wait until we can reconnect with you again. Thank you again from the bottom of our hearts.
Go Roos!
David Noble
