A day out from North’s season opener, assistant coach Shane Watson explained some of the match committee’s thinking on the club’s forward structure.

“What’s worked for us in the past has been the three bigs and three smalls,” Watson told RSN Racing and Sport.

PRESS PLAY above to listen to the interview.

“Most of the NAB Challenge we’ve had (Daniel) Currie as the third tall and given (Todd) Goldstein a bit of relief in the ruck.

“We’ve also played two big guys and another smaller type and that’s seemed to work alright as well. It depends on personnel and availability.”

The potential addition of Currie would allow Drew Petrie to be a permanent forward and not pinch-hit in the ruck. However even that isn’t as simple as it sounds.

“Generally we’d like to keep Drew forward. When the opposition sees Drew Petrie go into the ruck I reckon they’d be fairly pleased to see him out of the forward 50.

“Sometimes we use Drew in there to give Goldy a break but he’s actually quite a good ruckman so that’s the dilemma we’ve got – do we bring Currie into the side to take Drew’s ruck time?”

Whatever the final forward setup for Round 1 ends up being, it will change the way North brings the ball through the defensive half of the ground.
With the defensive press a vital part of all sides’ makeups, various strategies go into circumventing it.

“A lot of the work to beat it has been with quick movement through the hands and then getting it in long to the key position forwards.

“In a sense footy hasn’t changed that much in terms of wanting to get it into your forward line quickly.

“Some teams like to kick it long and others like to run it with hands. Sometimes you have to find that balance and attacking wise we generally find that balance.”

From North’s perspective, there has been a lot of work over the summer fixing its own defensive structures; Watson saying a lot of the summer training has been based around what happened late in 2013’s close games and the depth of the list will help throughout the year.

“There’s going to be some good players missing out every week which is not a bad thing.”