A win against St Kilda and all the talk was about the disappointing Saints. The same happened on Sunday after the Roos thumped the Blues; most focused on the loser rather than give credit to the victor.
But some media experts have moved to change the conversation like AFL360’s Mark Robinson on Tuesday night and Andrew Faulkner in Wednesday’s The Australian.
“Grand Final Breakfast? Genius! We’ll have one of those too. What’s that you say? Good Friday football? Go ahead North, all yours. But what a horrible game. And how bad were the Saints?,” Faulkner wrote.
“Poor old Kangaroos. Every idea they come up with gets stolen. That or whatever success they have is accompanied by an asterisk, as per the 1975 and ’77 flags*.
“And so it is again: the Shinboners’ 86-point win over Carlton on Saturday night is all about the bad Blues, rather than the resurgent Roos.”
Faulkner goes to great lengths explaining North’s strengths and picks apart the way the side has defied the odds.
“It all starts in the middle, and Hawthorn discards Jed Anderson and Billy Hartung have played all four games to reinforce the Kangas’ on-ball brigade. The ex-Hawks have bought Brad Scott time to get some games into youngsters Luke Davies-Uniacke, Jy Simpkin and Ryan Clarke,” Faulkner said.
“So wins of Saturday night’s magnitude are a bonus as Scott rebuilds his side.
“Scott’s joeys are typically mid-draft picks: 16 of the list were taken in the top 40 of the 2013 to 2017 drafts. Of those, only five were top-20 selections.”
The stats show the Roos aren’t the most skilful, but the are one of the toughest according to Faulkner.
“The Kangas are hard: they’re third for hard ball gets, fourth for tackles and contested marks, and fifth for contested possessions.”
And the Shinboners are hard to score against too.
“Scott has built a formidable defence around Robbie Tarrant and Scott Thompson. The Roos repel four out of five of their opposition’s inside 50m forays, ranking them top in the competition for the stat.”
The next test for North is Hawthorn, before a difficult month that includes Port Adelaide, Sydney, Richmond and GWS.
“If they beat Hawthorn on Sunday, the Roos could well be in the top four. From there, it’s a long fall to the wooden spoon predicted by so many a month or so ago.”
Regardless of what happens next, to date, the Roos have been superb and thankfully there are journalists willing to represent both sides, like Faulkner and Robinson.
