Despite sitting in 11th place on the ladder, the Kangaroos have kicked the most goals of any side in the competition. Brad Scott’s team averages 16 goals a game, placing it ahead of league leaders West Coast and second-placed Essendon.
With high risk can come high reward, and the fact North is leading the league for inside 50’s (59 a game) suggests its forwards are getting plenty of opportunities. It also ranks second in marks inside 50, only behind Carlton.
The Kangaroos are winning the ball out of the middle too. Second in the league for clearances, North has benefitted from first use thanks to Hamish McIntosh and Todd Goldstein. Its captain Andrew Swallow leads the AFL with 69 clearances (7.7 per game).
So where has it gone wrong for Swallow and his team and why don’t they sit higher on the ladder? Well a high risk approach can of course work the other way too.
Only Melbourne, Greater Western Sydney and the Gold Coast have conceded more points than North - those three teams share one win between them. It’s an issue Drew Petrie addressed on Monday during an interview on AFL.com.au.
“We play pretty fast footy and we like to play on a lot of the time inside 50. But when it rebounds we are caught napping a few times and we probably just need to chip it around a little bit more.”
While it’s excelling going into the forward half, North is also being hurt on the counter. It allows 53 inside 50’s a game from its opponents (league average: 51.5).
There’s also a heavy reliance on Aaron Edwards and Petrie in attack. The pair has combined for 43 marks inside the arc (23 and 20 respectively); Lindsay Thomas is the next best with nine. Could Aaron Black be the answer as a third tall? He pulled down three grabs inside 50 on Sunday, a mark only eclipsed by Edwards and Petrie this season.
And in the guts it could be argued the captain needs more of a chop-out. His clearance tally is almost double that of any team-mate (Jack Ziebell 35, Daniel Wells 33), though North did go a long way towards addressing that issue with four players registering five clearances or more against the Lions.
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