Sooooo true...
Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 5:12 pmCould the form team outside the top four go unsung yet again?
Rohan Connolly | August 11, 2008
WILL somebody please end the most tedious on-going story in football and finally give North Melbourne some credit. No? Well, what's new?
Without having the benefit of today's headlines before me as I write, I'll take a guess that most of the wash-up from yesterday's clash will revolve around what went wrong with the Western Bulldogs.
To that, you can add this: several things, but none so significant as simply coming up against a damn good football team.
It happens, you know, and nobody bats an eyelid. Except when that team is the Kangaroos, in which case the focus immediately shifts to the beaten team's inexplicable lapse against a team it should have gobbled up.
It reached new heights last year, when the Roos were hovering near the top of the ladder nearly all season but come finals time in some eyes had mysteriously appeared in the top four, as if by default. Two finals thrashings provoked a chorus of "told you so's", the semi-final win over Hawthorn ignored in the process.
The sceptics (including this one at times) had bitten even harder this season thanks to some unusual inconsistency. But now North has won five in a row, what carping criticisms are left over?
Yesterday's sensational win gave the Roos the double over the Doggies, who haven't beaten them since round eight, 2005. They've accounted for Hawthorn once, whom they should have beaten in the first meeting as well and pushed Geelong to within 13 points.
It should make Dean Laidley's side the obvious fourth leg of a potential premier quadrella, but we continue to trumpet Collingwood's capacity to play finals-type football, Sydney's big-time experience, and for reasons which after Saturday night look pretty silly, St Kilda.
So what does North having going for it beyond that tedious cliche about spirit? An absolute champion in Brent Harvey. A run-with player in Brady Rawlings only marginally behind Geelong's Cameron Ling as the best in the caper.
It has continually-underrated defenders in Michael Firrito and Daniel Pratt. Dangerous medium-sized forwards like Shannon Grant, and not the obligatory one but two ground-level forward line terriers in Matt Campbell and Lindsay Thomas. And a posse of youngsters, who, in true North tradition, don't get their just kudos either, like Ed Lower, Scott McMahon, and Rising Star nominee Gavin Urquhart, whose chase down and tackle on Farren Ray yesterday was the sort of effort that wins games on its own.
A healthy blend of talent and application, shrewdly coached. The sort of combination to which reams of copy is usually written and hours of airtime expended. But this is North Melbourne, remember. So let's pretend this little tribute didn't happen, OK?
Rohan Connolly | August 11, 2008
WILL somebody please end the most tedious on-going story in football and finally give North Melbourne some credit. No? Well, what's new?
Without having the benefit of today's headlines before me as I write, I'll take a guess that most of the wash-up from yesterday's clash will revolve around what went wrong with the Western Bulldogs.
To that, you can add this: several things, but none so significant as simply coming up against a damn good football team.
It happens, you know, and nobody bats an eyelid. Except when that team is the Kangaroos, in which case the focus immediately shifts to the beaten team's inexplicable lapse against a team it should have gobbled up.
It reached new heights last year, when the Roos were hovering near the top of the ladder nearly all season but come finals time in some eyes had mysteriously appeared in the top four, as if by default. Two finals thrashings provoked a chorus of "told you so's", the semi-final win over Hawthorn ignored in the process.
The sceptics (including this one at times) had bitten even harder this season thanks to some unusual inconsistency. But now North has won five in a row, what carping criticisms are left over?
Yesterday's sensational win gave the Roos the double over the Doggies, who haven't beaten them since round eight, 2005. They've accounted for Hawthorn once, whom they should have beaten in the first meeting as well and pushed Geelong to within 13 points.
It should make Dean Laidley's side the obvious fourth leg of a potential premier quadrella, but we continue to trumpet Collingwood's capacity to play finals-type football, Sydney's big-time experience, and for reasons which after Saturday night look pretty silly, St Kilda.
So what does North having going for it beyond that tedious cliche about spirit? An absolute champion in Brent Harvey. A run-with player in Brady Rawlings only marginally behind Geelong's Cameron Ling as the best in the caper.
It has continually-underrated defenders in Michael Firrito and Daniel Pratt. Dangerous medium-sized forwards like Shannon Grant, and not the obligatory one but two ground-level forward line terriers in Matt Campbell and Lindsay Thomas. And a posse of youngsters, who, in true North tradition, don't get their just kudos either, like Ed Lower, Scott McMahon, and Rising Star nominee Gavin Urquhart, whose chase down and tackle on Farren Ray yesterday was the sort of effort that wins games on its own.
A healthy blend of talent and application, shrewdly coached. The sort of combination to which reams of copy is usually written and hours of airtime expended. But this is North Melbourne, remember. So let's pretend this little tribute didn't happen, OK?
instead of winning $700- for them making the finals I layed off before they played Hawks, Ill still win $100- when they make it but $700- would have been much nicer 
