1998 Premiership Season

Goals: North Melbourne: Carey 4; Harvey 3; Sholl 2, Grant 2, Abraham 2, Crocker 2; Miles, King, A Stevens, D Stevens.

North Melbourne returned to form today beating a persistent Collingwood by 29 points. North started slowly but overtook the Magpies in the second term and managed to hold the lead all day. It was fiting that on this Royal holiday Wayne "King" Carey put in a right royal performance. He was as usual, an inspiration to the team, especially when we looked to be faltering late in the third term. Abraham , Harvey, Blakey, McCartney and Archer were also very good. The team was much different from the one that played last week, Roberts, Crocker, Miles and Stevens all coming into the side.

Collingwood started the better of the two sides, jumping North early. North struggled early on again kicking badly out of defence, King in particular was responsible for a few turnovers but luckily they went unpunished by the inaccurate Collingwood. Collingwood did get one though the big sticks eventually though, though Shane Watson. Brent Harvey roved a boundary throw in in the forward pocket and ran in to kick North's first but Collingwood got it back straight away. Of the match ups, Hewitt was up against Monkhurst in the middle, Martyn had Sav which McCartney took Anthony. Blakey had the tagging roll on Nathan Buckley in the middle and Anthony Stevens was assigned to Paul Williams. North's desperation was much better this week, Even Hewitt among the first to display it after running down a Magpie in a long chase, North got the ball and it ended up with Carey who casually drilled the goal from 55 metres out.

Sav Rocca got away from Martyn for the first time and kicked a great goal from the pocket, the angle was difficult and the kick was a beauty, not that I appreciated it much at the time. Collingwood though were well on top all over the ground and continued to pepper away at the goals, Brent Harvey was one of North's only winners early on, Mark Roberts was also having an impact in his first game back. Monkhurst looked as if he was going to be a problem for North with his height around the ground he took a number of marks patrolling half back. The delivery into the forward line wasn't very flash from North, in fact it was somewhat wayward and didn't give Longmire much of a chance. Defensively although fairly sound North did some weird things, Glen Archer cost us one goal after attempting a chip kick out of the back pocket allowing time for a Magpie to run the ball down and get it out to a team mate who kicked a goal. At quarter time North trailed by 16 points and the signs weren't good.

The Second Quarter was a totally different story, North played the best they have all year and showed the brilliance we all know they are capable of. Anthony Stevens got the first goal of the quarter running out of the middle. Stevens was to play a great second term, getting well on top of Paul Williams and giving North a lot of drive though the middle. The most important move I think though was the move of John Longmire into the ruck, he held his own in ruck contests and was much to mobile for Monkhurst around the ground, Longmire played so well that Monkey was dragged before the end of the term and North managed to wrestle total control from Collingwood in midfield. North's next goal came though Crocker who was back to his best after a long absence, he was well set up by Carey and drilled the goal without any problem. Winston Abraham then kicked the goal of the year to really lift the spirits of the players and the North crowd, running though midfield he deceived three Collingwood players before accelerating and kicking the goal from about 40 metres out to put us in front for the first time. North would never surrender the lead again. We were on fire, the midfield runners seemed to be everywhere at once and Carey and Crocker were beginning to put on a show up forward. Carey lead Collingwood a merry dance before turning around and kicking what would have been a certain goal. Unfortunately Peter Bell went back and tried to mark it and touched it just as it was going across the line. Harvey kicked his second after a great piece of play by Crocker. Crocker and Mark Roberts made valuable contributions and it was good to see some of out Premiership players returning to form. After all if anyone knows how to win a game of football it should be them. Collingwood were still managing the occasional venture forward but Martyn, McCartney, Archer and Co were there to make sure Collingwood didn't convert any of these chances into goals. Carey marked strongly again and gave the ball off unselfishly to Craig Sholl to kick a goal. Carey was best on ground by a mile today, he kicked four and gave off god knows how many others. Winston Abraham not satisfied with goal of the round took a huge mark of the round contender over Carey in the goal square and calmly bananaed the ball though for a goal.

Nathan Buckley was being blanketed by Blakey so Tony Shaw through him onto Carey in a desperate effort to get something out of him. Buckley had played well on Carey in the past but that was when the North champ was only playing with one good arm. Two minutes after the switch the ball came down to the pair one on one and Carey got rid of him with ease took the mark and gave it off to the fleet-footed Harvey who ran past collected and kicked his third goal for the game. It looked as if North would have the game in the bag by half time the way they were playing but an unfortunate incident stopped North's run. North won a free kick and then a 50 meter penalty out of the middle, it would have put Anthony Stevens 30 meters out straight in front and would have surely resulted in another goal. North however lost the ball first Danny Stevens infringed against Francis to have the 50 cut short at 25 and them the umpire deemed Archer to have given away a free on the wing and award Collingwood with the kick. Collingwood took it straight up the ground and kicked the goal. The two umpiring decisions were pretty soft but North shouldn't have put themselves in a position that could possibly lead to the kick being taken off them so they have to shoulder the blame. Despite King getting a goal shortly after North had lost the momentum and Collingwood had closed to within 2 goals at the main change. It was a good effort though by North, the first 8 goal quarter of the year , Crocker being particularly impressive.

Anthony Rocca took his second big fly of the game in the opening minutes of the half but again missed an easy shot. That was one thing that was good about North's game today with the exception of one shot by Longmire North didn't miss any easy shots at goal and kept up the "Scoreboard Pressure" all afternoon. Craig Sholl showed Rocca how it should be done minutes later swooping on the ball and converting from 40 metres out. North just seemed to be running and linking up so much better today, unlike last week when the ball came to Carey there was always an option whether it be Sholl or Abraham or Harvey running by ready to receive the ball. Carey again showed his class he set up first Longmire and then Crocker with pin point passes. The first bit of bad news for North came next, Rocca lead out for the ball and Martyn gave up half way though the lead, he had done his hamstring again. Well I could see that but the North coaching staff didn't seem to as he stayed on the ground and when the ball again came to Rocca he shrugged off Mick with ease and kicked the goal. Its a pity Martyn was playing well and will now miss three weeks hopefully. Hopefully because we want to make sure its right this time, soft muscle injuries normally take three weeks to be safe, I wonder if he was rushed back because of Savs 11 goal performance last week.

The loss of Martyn destabilised the North back line for a short time, it was long enough for Rocca to kick another goal though. Collingwood got the next goal as well and started to mount a challenge to the Roos, Carey should have been given a free though but as usual he never gets anything and Collingwood cleared the ball ran it down and kicked a goal. The Collingwood crowd where getting into the game and North looked a little venerable for a while until King Carey took over the game again. First he kicked a goal after receiving a much deserved free kick. One out Carey is impossible to beat, if the umpires realised this maybe they would give him more because the only way he wont get it is if the opposition stoop to illegal methods. Carey went back and kicked the goal to steady North. Winston Abraham got a bit too cocky after once again showing how skilful he is, he managed to get past Gavin Brown even though he fell over but tried to take on one player too many and was pinged for holding it. North got the ball back to Carey however and he weaved around his Collingwood opponent and hit the goal umpire with a perfect round the body goal. Collingwood who had to take off Monkhurst because he was shown up by Longmire may have wished he was still there to drop back on Carey because North had him one out at full forward and in the form he was in today he was never going to be beaten. Carey not satisfied with his two goals, got a third moments later the kick came in from downfield and Carey outmarked a desperate Gavin Brown and put the ball though the middle post high from 50 metres out. Just when North where starting to look a bit shaky Carey has single handily destroyed Collingwood in 5 minutes.

Collingwood to their credit however never gave up, they kept on coming all day and they kicked the opening goal of the final term to give themselves a slight chance of getting up and pinching it. North missed four chances in a row up forward, any one of them would have sealed the game but the Ball just refused to go the right side of the goal post. Archer was doing a great job on Sav Rocca in Martyn's absence the Collingwood big man didn't get a sniff once the burly Roo was switched onto him. Shannon Grant finally got what I thought at the time would be the goal that killed off Collingwoods spirit, he gathered the ball in midfield and like what we have already seen a number of times already this year he kicked with deadly accuracy to register the first goal of the afternoon. Grant was probably one of North's few quite players, he only had 10 touches but was there when it mattered, he kicked another goal in similar fashion later in the quarter. Collingwood did come back one last time, they got two quick ones but a goal from Crocker closed the door on them.

Unfortunately Crocker who had provided a great second target up forward was injured (again) soon after, colliding with Hewitt heavily in a marking contest. There was a clash of heads and both players were hurt, but while Hewitt shook it off and got up Crocker limped away on his bad knee, hopefully its only a corky, I haven't heard yet but he was taken from the field and didn't return again. Dion Miles got his first goal in his first game to close out the game. North won by 29 points thanks to Carey, Crocker, the running players such as Harvey, and Abraham and the magnificent backline. Longmire and Stevens also stared and were instrumental in the second quarter turn around. Jason McCartney had another very good game, he gets so much shit put on him from our own supporters for no reason at all, sure he's an ex magpie and an ex Crow and they arnt my favourite people either but Jason has played extremely well for us since crossing from Adelaide and I cant see why people continue to put the guy down. He marked fearlessly and stongly today, he punched the ball away when he was behind and he played in front when ever possible. Longmire too seems to have a love hate relationship with the fans. Two weeks ago he was a star at full forward and the people around me were saying how good he was, last week people were saying he should be shot, once again this week he's played a very important part in North's win. God help North if any of these supporters every got to be on the selection panel because without Longmire and McCarntey today we wouldn't have won.

Overall it was a good performance, especially after last weeks debacle hopefully we will be able to follow it up with another good showing against the tigers this week.