AFL 2011

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Dont follow North Melbourne very closely Molanski? It shows :P

First of all they dont rely on Harvey much at all.

Last year they were out classed by Geelong and Collingwood. They pushed both Hawthorn and Carlton and could have quite easily beat both of those sides. They pushed West Coast in Perth and arguably lost it themselves in the last quarter and ended up losing by 4pts. They beat Fremantle by like a hundred points.

They get Macintosh back and will have one of the top 2 ruck combos in the league with Goldstein. This will also allow Petrie to play full time forward which is a huge bonus.

They are a young side who are now ready to take the next step and by the looks of it there will be some surprised people when the bob up this year

spoke too soon eeelz!
Daw suspended by the leadership group indefinately

Jeez there are alot of kangaroo supporters in this thread. While I bias against the Roos I partially agree with molanski. I haven't seen a great deal from your kids at all. Bastinac is the pick by a mile on previous performances. Zieball has been in tge precipice but injury and poor form have not seen him take the next step. A fair amount of your list seem to be stuck in the area of not good enough for afl but too good for VFL.
Macintosh hasn't played in seems for like forever any there has to be serious doubts whether he will be the player he once was. Goldstein had a break out year but he's no cox yet and they don't have the same dynamic as cox nic nac. Goldstein and macintosh as basically the same player, a mobile tap ruckmen.
I read an article in the herald sun about there list. The article put every teams players into groups. Elite, good, average and poor. The kangaroos had the least in elite and a high percentage in poor. While you can argue swallow, petrie, wells and Harvey are elite the gap between your top 6 and bottom six is significant which IMO is the difference from bottom half of the eight to the top trams. You could even say carlton and hawthorns bottom 6 are stopping them from being a top two team.
In saying that there will be improvement but top 4 is drawing a long bow IMO. Especially with improvement from Carlton and hawthorn while Geelong and collingwood would be around the same level all things being equal.
I do think they will make the finals due to improvement but also teams like saint Kilda essendon will slide which opens up a spot.
Can't take too much out of beating Fremantle last year they barely had enough to play first grade. I think they will be the big improvers.
That game you mentioned against hawthorn was in launceston and it was raining, yes they did give them a real show but it was always going to be tight. They did show improvement against better teams colonel but also got beaten by teams below them in Richmond.

fkn majak!

Didn't even get a bite?

Lol you never let anything go colonel

Top 4 is optimistic... however they have had an injury free pre season (with the exception of Majak and Wells) They have a ton of talented midfielders coming thru and big men galore....... And check out their draw.. Its very favourable. GC x 2, GWS x 2, Collingwood, Geelong x 1, Only 1 WA trip and a glut of Ethiad games to finish the year. If they cant make it this year, forget em!

Yeh Very good draw but they still have to beat the best teams to be top 4. I don't know if there young midfielders are that good apart from zieball and bastinac.

watch leigh adams, only young and had a few seasons setback by injurys but played pretty well last year for his biggest season and will improve more so this year

Why all the hype about Macintosh? Last time he was fully fit he actually couldn't get a game in the side. He was a very good player a couple of years back but has gone backwards quickly, if he is North's ace in the hole then they won't be too feared. You say they could have quite easily beaten Carlton, perhaps, but Carlton could have quite easily given them an absolute flogging. They still won by 18 points but it was 15 scoring shots to 25 and I seem to recall that at one point in the 3rd quarter Carlton kicked 8 behinds in a row. If Carlton kick straight, and I don't really like to talk about 'ifs' but if they had kicked straight they would have belted North. They are battlers and tough but in footy, 90% of the time the cream rises to the top, one of the oldest and truest sayings in this game, and North don't have the cream.

North had injuries last pre season that put them on the back foot. North had a tough draw last year. North get a raw deal in general from the AFL. Things are looking better for them this year, but at the end of the day they will be fighting it out with Richmond and the bulldogs as the worst Victorian team. They are well behind the teams that molanski mentioned and I'd throw in Melbourne now that they have a decent coach. The 8 is ridiculously easy to pick this year; Carlton, hawthorn, Collingwood, Geelong, weagles, dockers, saints and the swans. Shut the gate.

Yeh i wouldn't be all that excited by Adams. He's a small tagger that works very hard to get possessions. Inside player but is he going to take you to the top?

Lol not even a nibble Madmax :D

What are you talking about Molanski? Last time Macintosh was fully fit he was one of the first picked and one of the best ruckmen in the comp.

Also scoring shots are not the best guide as to how a game was played. That match was 50-50 all night bar a 6-7 minute patch late where the Blues got a break. A Chris Judd goal from outside 50 really gave Carlton the momentum in that game i feel.

North dont have any real stars yet but thats because all their good players are young guys on the way up. Expect big improvement this year. They will finish 5th-6th bookmark it ;)

I don't believe anyone thinks Macintosh will be Norths 'Ace in the hole' but having him 100% fit and firing will be a welcome change. Their brigade of onballers (Harvey, Swallow, Wells, Adams, Zeibell, Bastinac, Cunnington, Greenwood) are a young (except Boomer), hard bunch and will get great service from Goldstein, if not Mcintosh. IMO their ace is 2nd year player Cameron Pederson. This guy showed plenty in his rookie year and if played down back with Scott Thompson, their usually vulnerable back line will be much tougher to crack. If the forwads Petrie and Edwards play at least as well as they did last season, and Thomas doesnt play half as sh!t as he did last year, then the only outcome is they will make the 8. Thats the only good thing about pre season. Everyone is equal and you can talk it up all you like. Bet Molanski is dreaming of another Buddy ton, Cyril staying fit all year big David Hales advanced hair holding up, Sam Mitchell getting that brownlow that got away and Luke Hodge summoning the ghost of Crimmo and tearing it up all year. Time will tell.

Cam Pederson is a great utility imo, probably keep him in the back line most of the time but can really play any where

i didn't say adam's will take em to the top, i just said keep an eye on him for some big improvement.
stuff talking about north anyway, go dees :)

I agree with you zebesty RE; Adams - He plays like a lesser Paul Chapman type.

one of the greats..

In the same league as Mark Bolton..