The return of Wayne Schwass had been a long time coming.
After breaking his arm early in the season opener, Schwass had missed the next eight AFL matches and the week of state football, but was finally ready to resume. Unsurprisingly he was raring to go.
“I reckon I’m the only one who reckons the time’s gone slow. It’s been a long, hard 10 weeks watching the boys play footy, but they’ve done well.”
Footscray was the opponent for the Kangaroos, a rematch from Round 2. On that occasion, North won by a whopping 131 points, kicking 26 goals en route to victory.
The Bulldogs had stabilised their team since then, and were confident heading into the Friday night clash.
“We know no-one is giving us a snowball’s chance in Hades of knocking off North but we are giving ourselves every chance.” – Gary O’Sullivan, Footscray team manager
The wider media was still predicting a comfortable Kangaroos victory.
“More stable they (Bulldogs) might be, but it is hard to see the Bulldogs beating North. McKernan and Carey dominated last time and again loom as insurmountable objects for a defence lacking in height.
“Romero has had an amazing run as a tagger, and he may be used on the hard-working Stevens again. But North has enough class to prevail.” – Len Johnson, The Age
North was confronted by an extremely physical Footscray side, clearly looking to turn the game into a scrap after the way Round 2 had unfolded.
There was only one goal for the entire first quarter. After that North began to get a foothold in the match and gradually started to pull away from its opposition.
Early in the last quarter the Roos stretched its lead out to nearly four goals and looked headed towards the four premiership points.
But two quick Bulldogs goals reduced the margin to just 10 points and they were headed forward again when disaster struck. A crunching tackle from Glenn Freeborn caught Romero holding the ball. Then Jason Daniltchenko kicked one of his five goals from the ensuing advantage and North settled again to run out victors.
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Afterwards, Denis Pagan was taking the positives out of the game.
“There is no doubt that it will do us the world of good to get that sort of intensity and pressure. It really opened a lot of our guys’ thoughts and opened their vision right up and they would have learnt a hell of a lot from today.”
A third win in a row for the Roos had maintained their top of the ladder position by percentage.
Next week: A match that would turn out to be season defining for the Kangaroos
North Melbourne: 0.3.3, 5.11.41, 8.17.65, 12.17.89
Footscray: 1.1.7, 5.3.33, 7.5.47, 10.9.69
NMFC changes
In: Wayne Schwass
Out: Matthew Armstrong
Goals
North Melbourne: Daniltchenko 5, Anderson 1, Carey 1, Crocker 1, Freeborn 1, McKernan 1, Scott 1, Sholl 1
Footscray: Watts 3, Curley 2, Hargraves 2, Johnson 1, Kolyniuk 1, Smith 1
Brownlow Medal
3 – Chris Grant (Footscray), 2 – David King (North Melbourne), 1 – Paul Dimattina (Footscray)
