North Melbourne skipper Andrew Swallow insists the Kangaroos remain a premiership threat despite the club’s lack of success against top eight sides in 2016.
Thursday night’s 33-point loss to Adelaide at Adelaide Oval was the Kangaroos’ fourth straight against a team in the top eight; their round six victory against the Western Bulldogs remains their sole success.
Yet, as has been the case in all but one of its top-eight contests this year, North remained in the contest until late.
Swallow said he and his teammates said as long as they found themselves playing finals football they would stay “quietly” confident they could once again venture deep into September.
“You look at a couple of those games we lost, to Hawthorn, probably a bit of inaccuracy cost us there, against Geelong (we were) right in it up until halfway through the last (quarter) and we were probably down two or three guys,” Swallow said.
“We still feel like, although we’ve lost a few, we’ve really been able to match it - Sydney was the disappointing one.
“We think we’re still around the mark and still quietly confident that we can make a run at it this year.
“It’s always nice [to beat the best teams] but at the end of the day if you rack up enough wins you’re going to be playing finals.
“It’d be nice to finish higher up the ladder, but we can still make a run at it from wherever we finish.”
Swallow said a heavy Adelaide Oval, combined with the club’s six-day break and an early concussion to Farren Ray, meant players struggled to run out the game.
Against a Crows outfit fresh from a week off, it made victory very difficult.
North will enjoy its bye next weekend, making it a 17-day break before it travels to Perth to take on West Coast.
Swallow said he and his teammates were in need of a rest.
“We’re pretty sore at the moment, there’s a few boys, so it’s a good time for us to have a break,” he said.
“I still thought a lot of what we did tonight was good, we just ran out of steam and full credit to the Crows because they just kept coming at us.”
