“Speed, run and excitement” were the key pillars of North Melbourne’s off-season recruiting drive.
In all, the club turned over 12 players in one of its biggest list transitions in recent times.
The Roos brought in an impressive mix of players with exposed AFL form.
“We always wanted to bring in four, five or six guys from other clubs with AFL experience,” List Manager Glenn Luff told The Herald Sun.
“We tracked players we thought were underutilised and maybe not as valued at their current clubs.”
Among the new recruits, Jaidyn Stephenson, Aidan Corr and Lachie Young.
Next came the draft, with North bringing in an exciting crop of midfielders and forwards.
With such a massive change – over a quarter of the list – the word “re-build” was bandied about. But inside Arden Street, that’s far from the case.
“We feel like it’s not ground zero,” Luff said.
“People think 17th on the ladder, tipping 11 players out is starting again.
“But we bring in (Jaidyn) Stephenson and we’ve got six Rising Stars in the one-to-four year players – the most of any team in the competition.”
Curtis Taylor, Bailey Scott, Tarryn Thomas, Cam Zurhaar and Nick Larkey have all earned Rising Star nominations, while Jy Simpkin and Luke Davies-Uniacke have proven they can stand up at AFL level.
“You throw in Will Phillips, Tom Powell and Charlie Lazzaro and we think we’ve got an unbelievable launching pad of youth to make a sustainable build,” Luff said.
“We’re sticking to the plan, and it’s looking exciting for us.
“We hope we’re going to be a really good team to watch going forward.”
Luff said North went in with a clear plan to add speed and run to its list during the exchange period, starting with Corr in free agency, and rounded out by Connor Menadue at the rookie draft.
On draft night, the Roos added three inside-midfielders, Phillips, Lazzaro and Powell, setting up its on-ball brigade for years to come.
“They (the selections) offer more than just your traditional inside mid who are exclusively stoppage players,” Luff said.
“They can run and get out and they’ve all got different little assets they bring to the game.
“We felt it was a great opportunity to block a group of midfielders to set us up for the next decade.”
In the space of two months, North has gone from having the most 26-to-29 year-old’s in the competition, to 24 players on its list aged 22 and under.
It’s been quite the transition, but Luff is confident the club has stuck a healthy balance of youth and experience.
“We had to change, and a lot of those 26-29-year-olds aren’t on the list anymore,” he said.
“But we’ve still kept plenty of experience.
“It’s not like we’re just throwing everything that’s a certain age out the door.
“We’ve still got (Todd) Goldstein, Tarrant, (Jack) Ziebell, (Ben) Cunnington, (Shaun) Atley, (Jared) Polec, Josh Walker, Taylor Garner, Jed Anderson, and then we bring in Corr and Luke McDonald wins the best-and-fairest.
“There was always the out of how many injuries we had. We had the most games lost to our entire list and our best 22 – but it was clear pretty early we needed to change.”
“It seemed like the whole world was panicking around how we were going to field a team.
“But we were far from panicked. We knew what we were doing and what we had lined up.
“We did it straight away compared to other clubs who did it in stages.”
