After shutting down Nick Daicos for three quarters last week before he was subbed off due to fatigue, North Melbourne's Will Phillips took another scalp in Clayton Oliver in a role that is quickly becoming his own.
Oliver had just 14 disposals - an equal-second lowest career tally (previously recorded in Round 23, 2023 and Round 2, 2016) - and gave away five free kicks, particularly frustrated in the first half.
Both Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin and Kangaroos counterpart Alastair Clarkson paid Phillips plenty of credit for his performance in the thrilling match which saw the Demons hang on by three points.
"It's certainly given him an opportunity to play in the side. He's been playing some pretty good footy in the VFL, and just with the rotation of guys – he did too good a job on Daicos in the first half last week not to continue to get an opportunity in that space this week," Clarkson said.
"What we do next week (against the Western Bulldogs), I'm not too sure. There's a little bit of a challenge, because what's kept him out of the side in a sense is the depth of midfielders we've had through there. With Jy (Simpkin) coming back this week, our captain, that puts a test on the depth of the midfield and who can play through there.
"But we wanted to give him another opportunity in that space and thought he acquitted himself really well. Sometimes guys just need to have some sort of role like that to just find their spot in the side."
DEMONS v KANGAROOS Full match coverage and stats
Melbourne got out to a 39-point lead late in the third term before North Melbourne stormed home, just falling short as the Roos kicked the last six goals of the game while the Demons remained scoreless.
Clarkson took a glass half-full approach to the narrow loss, the second in two weeks for the club after a breakthrough win a fortnight ago against West Coast, with the team now ready to add a new element to the training track – working on close finishes.
"It seems a little bit comical we weren't doing a hell of a lot of it in the first half of the year, because what's the point of practicing it when you're never in close finishes," Clarkson said.
"It gives us heart we can practice some of that now, not that we absolutely ignored it, but it's pretty hard for players to get motivated to practice red-time finishes in games when you're very rarely in them, but that's the pleasing part of it.
"Just at the moment, the more experienced sides know what to do in the crunch more than we are, but at least we're giving ourselves a chance in games. We'll learn and the Collingwoods and Melbournes and Sydneys have, over the journey, had disappointments in close losses, but hopefully the exposure to it augers well for the future."
