While the fabric of a football club is constantly being altered, changed and rewoven by those who pass through it, the one constant is the football club itself.

With the debut of Phoenix Spicer in Round 23, North Melbourne has now had 1038 players pull on the royal blue and white stripes, and countless others who have impacted the club without playing a game.

With the removal of the competition’s ‘zoning’ rules in the 1980’s, the drafting of the best young players around the country is still a relatively new development compared to the overall history of the AFL.

Those new players, pulled from all over the country, add to the tapestry of history that makes up North Melbourne.

Drafted in 1995 before playing 432 games and moving into coaching, Brent Harvey has seen countless players make the grade, but many also don’t get to live the dream.

Now a development coach working closely with the next generation, he says the camaraderie between North’s most recent crop of first year players is as close as he’s seen.

“This year we had six draftees and then the two boys also come in mid-season. As a club you don’t usually get six, seven, eight cracks at it,” Harvey told North Media.

“This has been a really good group because there’s been so many of them, and they’ve really leant on each other over the year.

“You don’t normally get so many young kids come in all at once, but I’ve loved working with all of them.”

Of those eight new players, five debuted, and each and every one of them adds something different to the playing list, whether that be from a physical or positional perspective.

Spicer and Charlie Lazzaro show the potential to be hard-working, excitement machines. Patrick Walker and Charlie Ham have showcased elite kicking and running in the back half of the ground.

Tom Powell and Will Phillips are classy, smooth-moving inside midfielders with the versatility to pinch hit in the forward line or on the wing.

Eddie Ford is a strong marking, athletic medium sized forward, and Jacob Edwards shows signs of becoming an elite ruck/forward combination.

Harvey says the different attributes held by all eight players means they could all have long futures at North Melbourne.

“We had a couple of top-end picks in Will (Phillips) and Tom (Powell), and the other boys have complemented that really well,” he said.

“They’re a really talented bunch who have been an absolute joy to work with this year.

“I can see this group staying together for a long period of time and playing a lot of football.

“Those are the things you look for when you draft players, and it’s really nice for the future of our footy club.”