Due to the extension of my overseas holiday this page will now not be updated until Midseason. Sorry for any inconvienancy and I hope to see you all back here in 99. Go Kangas.
This page can now be accessed under http://www.kangaroos.cjb.net hopefully this will be a little easier to remember.
North Melbourne has picked up a number of new young players as well as two recycled ones in yesterdays national draft. North used its first pick number 15 overall to select 17 year old Brady Rawlings from the Tassie Mariners. Rawlings who has a brother at Hawthorn is a highly rated pacy wingman and stands 183cm tall. If North were after Winmar they had there plans upset by the Dogs who took the ex-Saint one pick before we had a chance. North did however pick up another Aboriginal player, former Docker (we seem to be a second home for discarded Dockers) Gary Dhurrkay. Like Abraham he burst onto the seen in the Dockers first year but has struggled for consistency. He's still only 24 and may be able to establish himself in the position vacated by Anthony Rock. North's third selection 47 overall was used to pick up Nick Lowther, who has a brother, Daniel at Geelong. Nick can play on either the forward or back flanks or on the wing and is a good mark. North used its forth round 62nd pick to select Tim Van Der Klooster from the Geelong Falcons. Van Der Klooser is 18, 197cm Ruck/Forward who is praised for his athletic ability. North are expected to try and mold him into a key postion backline player.
In the 5th Round North picked up Adam Lange from Sturt in South Australia. Lange has played most of his recent football at Subiaco before crossing to Adelaide last season. Lange is a centre-half back who had a good season in the SANFL last year. North's 6th pick was Shannon Motlop from North Adelaide. Motlop is another Aboriginal player, only 19 years old and is a quick and skillfull midfielder. With our final pick in the draft North picked up former Fitzroy/Brisbane Lion Shane Clayton. Clayton was one of the 7 that went up to Brisbane but never made an impression up there. He did show a lot of promise as a Fitzroy player though and might play better back in Melbourne playing with his ex-team mates Pike, Chandler and Mellington.
Selection
Name
Age
Recruited from:
15
Rawlings, B
17
Tas Mariners
31
Dhurrkey,G
24
Fremantle
47
Lowther, N
17
Preston
62
Van Der Klooster, T
18
Geelong Fal
74
Lange, A
19
Sturt
85
Motlop, S
19
North Adelaide
90
Clayton, S
20
Brisbane
North went for midfielders as expected, Dhurkey was a surprise pickup and will be expected to be a consistant senior player especially considering he's going to be getting a base payment of $50,000 plus $2500 a game and bonuses if he plays more then 15 senior games. The last time North invested in such a high price draft selection we ended up with Reynolds who was never able to establish himself in the senior team. Rawlings will be on a base of $30,000 a year and the other draft picks will get a minumum of $23,000. Hopefully a coupe of these players will be able to come on and play senior football in the near future. In other draft News, Anthony Rock was overlooked and will have to wait till February to find a new home while Richmond elevated son of North legend Keith Greig, Matthew to its senior list. Anthony Stevens brother has joined Danny Stevens brother at Port Adelaide.
North Melbourne has finalised its list in preparation for next months draft. Darren Crocker, Chris Groom,
Damien Houlihan, Kent Kingsley, Luke McCormack, Josh
Robertson, and Anthony Rock were players to be cut to make way for fresh talent. Michael Martyn and Craig Sholl were placed on the veterans list. Of the players to go Anthony Rock is the biggest name, Rock has been the mainstay of the North midfield for years and its sad to see him depart the club. Rock was offered a one year deal but wanted out of the club believing more opportunities would be available at another club. Rock has been out of form for most of the year and was offered to Richmond in pre-draft trading. It really is an end of an era now at the club with Crocker leaving as well and the departure of Schwass at the end of last season. In other news North is one of the clubs that may be thinking of picking up troublsome ex Saint Nick Winmar, Winmar is 31 but still has the ability if he could settle down and concentrate on the footy. The second of the Kingsley boys has been delisted by the Club both came over two years ago from Port in a swap for Paul Geister.
Australia has lost the International Rules Test Series to Ireland after being comfortably beaten last night. Stevens and Carey both put in solid games, Stevens set up two Australian goals while Carey had a lot of the ball and tackled hard, especially in the last term but was let down by poor kicking.
Wayne Carey leads Australia out against Ireland in the second test tommorow night and has warned Ireland his side will be better prepared than in last weekend's thrilling one point victory. After a week of training, with some sightseeing mixed in, Carey said the Aussies were expecting Ireland to come out harder this time, but that a better knowledge of the hybrid game would benefit his squad. Irish Coach Colm O'Rourke has marked Carey as the man to stop if Ireland are to get back and level the series. Carey said "We'll know more what to expect, and how to play the game. Early on, we were giving it away a bit too much. Kicking it high into the forward line hoping someone would take a mark. It doesn't work like that. Later in the game we started playing more of a possession game, like the Irish, and it worked for us". Carey also said that Australia was surprised by how hard the Irish went in for the ball. The game was played at a high intensity, with tempers at times boiling over, and the North Melbourne captain said he was expecting more of the same this time. The picture on the left shows Anthony Stevens on the ground fighting the Irelish goalkeeper in last weeks game
North Melbourne has picks 15, 31, 47, 63, 79, 95 in the upcoming draft. The stand out players seem to be the two SA boys but North wont have a chance at those with 15th selection. Speedy Midfielders are probably going to be what were going after. Meanwhile Ex-Roo Peter Mann is making another demand for money, the player who left North to seek fame and fortune in the West has had a shocking couple of seasons with injury and has been offered a reduced contract by Fremantle. Mann will enter the draft if an agreement with the Dockers can not be reached.
North has appointed Mark Thompson as Reserves coach for next season. Thompson quit Essendon eariler in the week after getting sick of working with a nut case like Kevin Sheedy. His appointment at Arden Street means that the Roos will now boast a five-man full-time coaching panel, the largest in the AFL. North's former reserves coach, Tony Elshaug, will now work closely with Pagan and the senior team, while Norm Dare and Tim Harrington will retain their coaching, development and administrative duties.
Former North Melbourne backman Ross Smith, who played 224 games for the Kangaroos, has been appointed assistant coach to Gary Ayres at Geelong for the next two years. Darren Crocker has also been appointed player/coach of Port Melbourne.
Wayne Carey has lead the Australian team to a win against Ireland in the first test between the two teams at Crow Park. Crappy name for a ground I reckon, anyway Australia were outplayed for most of the game but came charging home in the last quarter to win by a point. Stevens and Carey both played Solid games Carey kicked 4 lots of 3 and Stevens managed to get into a fight with half the Irish team.
North Melbourne was very quite in post season trading, in fact they were extremely quite being the only team not to make a trade. This comes as a big surprise as it was widely tipped that North would clear out some of the senior players who were not performing while they still had a market value. North did go hard after Campbell offering, Rock, Freeborn and Welsh but this deal was turned down by the Tigers, Campbell's asking price didn't help much believed to be $1,000,000 over three seasons. North was also interested in Ricky Olarenshaw but lost out to Collingwood. It certainly was a contrast from last seasons trading period when we picked up Shannon Grant , Winston Abraham and Jason McCartney all key players in the 98 season.
Wayne Carey has taken out the 1998 Syd Barker medal for the clubs best and fairest. Carey trailed Glen Archer early but realed him in in the closing rounds to take out the award for the fourth time. Last years winner Anthony Stevens finished the year strongly to yet again finish runner-up
Other award to be given that night included:
Reserves Best&Fairest : Ryan Pagan
Most Determined player: David King
Northerners award : Byron Pickett
Best Clubmen : Peter Bell
Personality of the year: Robert Scott
Wayne Carey, John Longmire and Anthony Stevens were also presented life memebership of the club. It was a great night and i will have more photos when I develop the film.
Name
Votes
Carey, W
526
Stevens, A
453
Archer, G
441
Blakey, J
355
Bell, P
323
Grant, S
306
Martyn, M
270
Pikett, B
268
King, D
263
Simpson, A
247
Wayne Cambell has walked out on Richmond leaving the door open for North to make a move for the Richmond Best and Fairest player. Cambell could be just what we need in midfield but his asking price may be a bit high considering we are already paying out a bit for Shannon Grant. North would have to give up a quality player to interest the Tigers who still insist that Cambell is a required player at Punt Road.
North Melbourne is reported to be one of the clubs chasing disenchanted Eagle Andrew Donnelly who is set to walk out over a contract dispute. The 25 year old only managed 13 games with the West Coast this year after in impressive debut year in 1996. North is also in the running for Port Adelaide backmen Adam Heuskes who has told the club he wishes to be traded. North are having takes with Essendon assistant Mark Thompson after he was unsuccessful gaining the Essendon senior coaching job. Not surprisingly Thompson has had enough of Sheedy and wants to continue his involvement at another club.
Anthony Rock has attracted interest from Collingwood, Brisbane and Geelong. A possible deal could be done with Collingwod for Tony Francis.
Wayne Carey is hot favourite to take out the Syd Barker medal at tonights best and fairest count at Crown. The players will also be presented with the lossers medals from the Grand Final.
Wayne Carey admitted in a TV interview that North Melbourne did relax at half time in the Grand Final.
North Melbourne has said there will be changes to the senior list in order to improve the side that capitulated in last weekends Grand Final. John Longmire appears safe after being reassured that he is a required player. Anthony Rock's position at the club doesn't seem as secure though with North seemly prepared to trade him if a trade of value could be found. Looking at the senior list, Crocker is gone, Roberts and Blakey probably only have one more season in them. I think I trade could be done with one of the ruckman, either Hewitt or Capuano, there is no need for us to have three quality ruckman on the list. Hewitt was supposed to be home sick and heading back to West Australia. A trade with the Dockers may be able to be arranged, maybe involving Stuart Anderson who has quit the club and appears keen to rejoin North. What North needs is pace in midfield, Tony Brown from St Kilda is may suit the requirements, so to may Ricky Olarenshaw who has quit Essendon and was keen to join North a few years ago. A lot in the media seem to think we need another key defended but I don't really think that's a priority at the moment, it wasn't the backline that lost us the Grand Final, is was the running players in midfield who refused to man up on their players allowing them to run free after half time. Really North doesn't need much, we dominated the season really and should beat the Crows 9 times out of 10, we just couldn't do it when it mattered. Anthony Stevens brother Michael was impressive in the Murry Bushrangers premiership win over Geelong and would be a good player to have at the club if we could trade to get a better draft pick. North would hope that players like Scott Welsh who have been around the club a while now and have show flashes of talent are able to step up and become consistent performers at senior level. Damien Houlihan would we one player who seems certain to be delisted after showing a bit in the Ansett Cup but failing to play a senior game. Players facing the axe include Stuart Cochrane, Chris Groom, Damien Houlihan, and Anthony Mellington all of which have been around a while at AFL level without being able to play much senior football. Craig Sholl has also struggled though most of this season and might find his position under threat.
North Melbourne has played it's worst half of football this year to through away the clubs fourth Premiership going down to the Crows in the Grand Final. North Melbourne should have been up by 10 goals at half time but the kicking for goal was shocking. Adelaide then came out and wiped the floor with us in the second half.
Winston Abraham as expected has taken out the 1998 Cadbury mark of the year for his supurb fly again Port Adealide up in Canberra. Abraham beat out team mate Scott Welsh and Jeff Farmer for the award of $10,000.
North Melbourne will use their regular rooms in the Southern Stand for this weeks Grand Final, they will also be the home side wearing blue shorts and the traditional Blue and White Striped uniform. Everyone trained well at Arden Street last night, Chandler played in the senior team in drills up against Freeborn and that is looking the only likely change at this stage
Press here to see olders news
Wayne Carey leads Australia out against Ireland in the second test tommorow night and has warned Ireland his side will be better prepared than in last weekend's thrilling one point victory. After a week of training, with some sightseeing mixed in, Carey said the Aussies were expecting Ireland to come out harder this time, but that a better knowledge of the hybrid game would benefit his squad. Irish Coach Colm O'Rourke has marked Carey as the man to stop if Ireland are to get back and level the series. Carey said "We'll know more what to expect, and how to play the game. Early on, we were giving it away a bit too much. Kicking it high into the forward line hoping someone would take a mark. It doesn't work like that. Later in the game we started playing more of a possession game, like the Irish, and it worked for us". Carey also said that Australia was surprised by how hard the Irish went in for the ball. The game was played at a high intensity, with tempers at times boiling over, and the North Melbourne captain said he was expecting more of the same this time. The picture on the left shows Anthony Stevens on the ground fighting the Irelish goalkeeper in last weeks game
North has appointed Mark Thompson as Reserves coach for next season. Thompson quit Essendon eariler in the week after getting sick of working with a nut case like Kevin Sheedy. His appointment at Arden Street means that the Roos will now boast a five-man full-time coaching panel, the largest in the AFL. North's former reserves coach, Tony Elshaug, will now work closely with Pagan and the senior team, while Norm Dare and Tim Harrington will retain their coaching, development and administrative duties.
Wayne Carey has taken out the 1998 Syd Barker medal for the clubs best and fairest. Carey trailed Glen Archer early but realed him in in the closing rounds to take out the award for the fourth time. Last years winner Anthony Stevens finished the year strongly to yet again finish runner-up
North Melbourne will use their regular rooms in the Southern Stand for this weeks Grand Final, they will also be the home side wearing blue shorts and the traditional Blue and White Striped uniform. Everyone trained well at Arden Street last night, Chandler played in the senior team in drills up against Freeborn and that is looking the only likely change at this stage
