North Melbourne are done for 2024 - time to stick a fork in them
With the 2024 AFL Season barely into June, the winless North Melbourne Kangaroos are done for the year and it looks like yet another wooden spoon to boot.
The year started out brightly for the Shinboners with a win in the pre-season against defending Premiers the Collingwood Magpies and master coach Alastair Clarkson excited at the shiny new toys he'd inherited at the Draft.
Then the coach landed in hot water in the club's next preseason match as he angrily shouted homophobic slurs at St Kilda defender Jimmy Webster, who had just bumped Jy Simpkin into Disneyland, with the former getting a fine and suspended suspension while the latter missed the start of the season.
Fast forward to their midseason bye and their average game score is 118 to 66 with a percentage of 55.9%, which is dismally bad and looking to get worse as they face some seriously good sides searching for their own percentage boosts.
What is wrong with the Kangaroos?
They suck. They have not been good for some time, but with veterans retiring and moving on with no real recruits of any great quality coming in, it's just been a matter of play the kids and try something different.
Player morale is clearly at an ebb as the losses column inches up every week and a win seems out of reach despite the next game being against the West Coast Eagles at Optus Stadium in Perth.
Cam Zurhaar, who publicly rounded on Jason Horne-Francis for walking out on North, is now prevaricating over signing an extension as his head gets turned by Free Agency, but even he isn't doing his chances much good because interest from other clubs isn't warming up as his form remains so so.
Bailey Scott is also out of contract this year and must be wondering what life at a winning club must be like having come from the Suns Academy but choosing his Dad's old club and playing under five head coaches in five years.
The Tarryn Thomas saga is finally over, but North have been damaged by it as they have lost one of their best players and a high draft pick as well with no compensation - they even seem to have been bullied by the media into saying they won't ask for any priority picks this year.
The club has 20 players out of contract this year, which in itself is not unusual and it isn't even the longest list of unsigned players, but List Manager Brady Rawlings has an unenviable task ahead of him trying to work out who to keep and how to keep them plus excising the players who he believes can't make it.
Bringing in Undrafted Free Agents Brynn Teakle and Geordie Payne will not turn their fortunes around, however, if one or both can play roles that makes the best 23 better then it has to count as a win.
North's forwards are actually quite good, yet they are freezing to death with the lack of actual ball coming into the forward line and even Nick Larkey hasn't been able to find the form that has had him winning games off his own boot in past seasons where wins were hard to come by.
The backline woes since the departure of Ben McKay have been real as they mix and match some talls, but Griffin Logue's return this month should add some starch while they can't be any worse than they have been.
The club has retained all of their picks for the National Draft, which at this stage is the first pick of each round, however, unless they have a plan to trade some midfielders it would seem like a good year to maximise their picks by trading out of pick one, although if Zurhaar can get a good enough Free Agency offer then North could be picking at one and two with the compensation.
In summary, North Melbourne is at its nadir as a club and with 12 games left this year, they couldn't even make finals if they ran the table.