This week’s column was supposed to be about the Daicos brothers. It was supposed to be a look at how they compare to their dad, what a nightmare they are to clamp down on, and what a joy they are to watch. That all went up the spout on Saturday night, as North Melbourne held off Fremantle in the most unlikely and controversial circumstances imaginable. It’s hard to know where to begin, so I’ll start at the end. Were the Dockers robbed? Or would it have been grand larceny if the free kick had been awarded and they’d kicked the set shot?
Every time an umpire plucks an inexplicable free kick from a ruck contest, I’m reminded that the rules of this sport are a mystery to me. The final seconds at Optus Stadium hammered that home. It felt like it should have been a free kick. And 40,000 Dockers fans, not always the most reliable witnesses, were adamant it was a free kick. But by the letter of the law, the right call was made. And as Alastair Clarkson said: “I think our footy club deserves it just this once.”
Ah yes, Clarko. Football’s elephant in the room. This isn’t the time and place to delve into the Hawthorn racism review, to examine intergenerational trauma or any of the other issues the original story examined. What I can say is that it was an interesting study in the way we react to big, complex stories – the way we rush to judge and execute, the way we draw the same battlelines as we do on every other important issue, that way stories like this become part of the culture wars. It was equally instructive in demonstrating the immense power that Clarkson wields – the way North Melbourne rallied around him, the way they threw all their chips in with him. He arrived for pre-season training with a thumbs up. He maintained his innocence. He delisted Jared Polec. And he changed everything.
“It’s a matter of compartmentalising,” he says. As he knows better than anyone, when you’re a high-profile coach, you never know what’s coming. One minute you’re being feted as an icon of the game and the next you’re the subject of an ABC investigation. You turn up in the first week of January and one of your most promising young players is up on a revenge porn charge. You’re door-stopped by a young TV reporter, give her a serve, and issue the most unconvincing apology since Wayne Carey’s outside the Magistrates Court.
The first few rounds have allowed him to get back to what he does best. He spent the better part of Saturday evening in the crouched position down on the bench. He rode every bump, every howler, every goal. He looked to be having a whale of a time. And he had the Dockers playing left-handed. A Clarkson-coached game is an audit. If you’re in any way flaky, he’ll exploit it. He’ll plot and he’ll probe. He’ll take you to spots you don’t want to go.
David King has long been tough on Fremantle. “Fake footy,” he calls it. “A waste of time.” “A con.” I reckon that’s a bit harsh. But they were audited by Clarkson (and Ross Lyon for that matter) and their papers weren’t in order. Their lack of forward potency is glaring. But it’s more than that. They play dumb football. They bomb and they blaze. They deserved to lose on Saturday.
In contrast, the Roos were smarter and tougher. There’s certain things that are non-negotiables when you’re a Clarkson footballer – you don’t meander back to defend, and you don’t meekly give up goals. Look at Harry Sheezel at the death. Look at the way he defended the line, the way he kept his cool. At draft time, the young talent are ‘sliders’, ‘bolters’ and ‘contested beasts’. But footballers who can keep their head are worth their weight in gold. Sheezel did everything right. He’s had more than 60 possessions in two games of league football. He’s 18 years old. Clarkson says he has a few more kids of similar quality raring to go. He can build a club around them now.
And he can certainly build a club around Luke Davies-Uniacke. Matthew Lloyd is the coach of one of those school teams that is obscenely resourced, the sort of school that has half a dozen pilates studios and plunge pools, the sort of school that seems to produce 90% of the draftees, every one of which is a “young man of outstanding character”. He always insisted Davies-Uniacke was the pick of the crop. He’s shown some signs over the years, with his fast feet and his ability to explode from a stoppage. But he was a lamb to the slaughter at times. This year, he finally has the support and the system around him, and he’s matured into one of the best players in Australia.
In November, Clarkson addressed his young players. Don’t even bother turning up, he told them, unless you want to be a Premiership player. Don’t be content with being a solid AFL footballer. “It’s all about sacrificing the ‘me’ for the ‘we’,” he said. “The whole of society and all our lives is trying to make it about the individual, and we’re trying to make it about the group.” He’s been talking like that since 2004. But this is his group now. This is his club. “The New North” he calls it. Whether you wear a duffle coat, an opposition coach’s polo top, or a King’s Counsel’s wig, there’ll be no easy answers with Clarkson. It’ll be the New North but the same old Clarkson – as brilliant, as belligerent and as polarising as he’s always been.
