Is North Melbourne Finally Ready To Live Up To Their AFLW Hype?

Since the club’s inception in 2019, the Kangaroos have been one of the most fancied teams in the competition, with excellent recruiting and strong structures in place from the outset, immediately placing them in premiership contention.

Let’s not underestimate the efforts of the club so far – in their inaugural season, North finished with a record of 5 wins and 2 losses, missing out on finals due to the implementation of a largely farcical conference system.

They only lost once in 2020, sneaking through in a thrilling semi-final against Collingwood before COVID ended the season without a Premier, while last season, they finished 6^th and the tables were turned, with the Magpies winning a thrilling Qualifying Final.

Perhaps it’s a simple case of being unlucky, but the numbers talk and the Kangaroos have been unable to reach the ultimate glory despite being best placed in multiple seasons.

Fresh off a win against the Bowers-less Dockers, North Melbourne sits 4^th with 4 wins and 1 loss, exactly half-way through the season and are once again looking to be relevant come the business end of the season.

And while on a surface level it may seem like this is a carbon copy of the club’s first three seasons, there’s an underlying factor that is indicative of a group ready to take the next step in 2022.

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There is little doubt that the Kangaroos have one of the best and deepest midfields in the AFLW.

Since entering the competition the Roos have been the number one disposal, kicking and marking team in the competition, priding themselves on good footskills on the outside to control field possession.

An embarrassment of midfield riches that sees half-backs and half-forwards rotate through the middle with the stars having the ability to play off either flank means that weight in disposal numbers is a relentlessly difficult obstacle for the opposition to overcome if they aren’t at their own tackling best.

2020 All-Australian Ash Riddell is having a particularly standout season, averaging 27.8 disposals (1^st in the competition), 388.9 metres gained (3^rd), 5.2 clearances (6^th) and 4.4 inside 50s per game (3^rd), proving to be the driving force behind North Melbourne’s centre dominance.

These are all career-high markers for Riddell, who is the poster child for the improved directness of a team whose ball retention feels far more constructive.

Riddell has her midfield support in the form of 2-time best-and-fairest Jasmine Garner, averaging 20.2 disposals, 3.4 inside 50s and having kicked 2.5 for the season, as well as Jenna Bruton, Ellie Gavalas and impressive 20-year-old Mia King, who’s averaging 7.8 contested possessions and 4.4 tackles per game.

As impressive as the midfield is performing, and the names are standing out grandly, it’s the two other lines of the ground that are reason for better optimism this season.

Strangely enough, it’s the offensive inefficiency that best encapsulates the strides forward that North Melbourne have undertaken in 2022.

Fixable yet increasingly concerning should it not have been worked out over the next couple of weeks, the Kangaroos are getting the ball inside 50 and producing scoring shots at a rate that ranks them comfortably in the competition’s top 4.

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Prior to the season, a key worry about this team was the lack of talismanic forward that other, more successful clubs do tend to have.

This hasn’t necessarily been an issue for the team in the past, given the leading goal-scorers in the past couple of season have been Garner, Sophie Abbatangelo, Daisy Bateman, Daria Bannister and Kaitlyn Ashmore.

But the team looked far more structure with Emma King as a key marking target in 2021 and it didn’t seem obvious whether that was possible again this season.

The overall inaccuracy of the playing group has perhaps masked how much better the Kangaroos looks structurally in attack.

Smalls and midfielders are hitting the scoreboard with great regularity, Bannister has 4.2, Gavalas has kicked 3.5, Bateman 3.2, Garner 2.5, Abbatangelo has flourished with 2.5, while Ashmore and young half-forward Alice O’Loughlin have chipped in with a couple of goals.

The recruitment of Kim Rennie has gone understated in terms of its importance, with her ruck minutes allowing King to spend more time in attack. Despite a return of 0.4, King’s averaging career-highs in disposals, marks and inside 50s, as well as stretching the opposition’s defence.

And perhaps the biggest boost to the structure of the attack has been the positional shift of Tahlia Randall, who has become an incredible aerial target for the team having been one of the league’s most effective defenders in previous seasons.

The 23-year-old has been inaccurate too, kicking 2.6, but her ground-level work and mere presence in the forward 50 has had a domino effect on the rest of the team.

Inspiring coaching choices have seemingly unlocked this group further, with Randall’s shift forward slightly overshadowed by the masterstroke by moving Emma Kearney to the half-back line.

The five-time All-Australian has been one of the league’s premier clearance players over the course of her career, but this shift to defence has allowed the Kangaroos to maximise her ball use and elite reading of the play.

Kearney is averaging 17.3 disposals and an incredible 78.3% disposal efficiency, 330 metres gained and career-highs with 5.5 intercepts, 4.8 marks and 3.5 rebound 50s.

It has certainly given a boost to an already potent rebounding line for North Melbourne. Danielle Hardiman (81.8% disposal efficiency), Jess Duffin (80.8%) and Brooke Brown (66.7%) have all been prolific with excellent use in transition while Brown, Kearney and Aileen Gilroy, ranked 5^th in the league for intercepts, have been great air marshals.

It’s certainly easy to get lost in the numbers and believe that the Kangaroos are just “getting by” with the same gameplan as previous seasons but in reality, the improvement out of defence and the new structures inside 50 are cause for great excitement and optimism for fans of the club.

A lot will be learnt in the second half of the season, with games scheduled against Collingwood, Melbourne and Brisbane to come.

But 2022 has seen a tactical alteration and on-field setup that simply needs more accurate goalkicking to elevate universal opinions of this playing group.

North Melbourne was already a good team but should things sharpen up, we might finally see the club live up to the hype at the pointy end of the season.

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