Is Brad Scott the AFL's true coaching genius?

given north go in 2 short every week so far this season with kayne turner and vickers willis they are doing ok. vicker is injured. hopefully for his sake, its not long. but the reality is. he is undersized and cannot play key position and never will grow tall enough to play on the no.1 key forwards (frankin, kennedy, hogan, hawkins, etc..). he is not quick so cannot play shut down roles on smaller players. he is an ordinary kick, neither fast, long, accurate or penetrating. so he is not giving run and rebound. i must say, afl circa 2018, if you are going being undersized, slow and with average skills, you are giong to struggle. his disposal efficiency looks ok because he chisells of a sideways handball or easy kick around the horseshoe. yes - he reads the game well and his aerial skills are decent. but so does luke mc donald and jamie mc millan who are similar sizes, but quicker and better kicks. and the 2nd self imposed hcp is kayne turner. he is in his 5th seasons. the forwad pocket is a spot to develop talented youngsters, who then graduate to midfield in their 2nd or 3rd year. for example, north could be playing davies uniake in this role, giving cam zurhaar more game. the fact turner still sits as a permanent small forward this far into career suggests he is not going to graduate into a 20-25 poss mid. to be a career small forward, that doesnt rotate as a mid, you need to be damn good small forward. im takling eddie betts, steve milne level. turner has 1 goal from 7 matches. this is awful return. on target for 3 goals a season. i dont care how many tackles he gets (its actually not that many) or how much inferred pressure he creates. i accept this might compensate somehwat, but in my view, net result is vastly underwhelming. so, not only is hogging up a spot that could be used to develop a player into a premier midfield role (no surprise davies uniake has struggled when thrown in deep end of midfield), but he is underperforming significantly in that role. its just not good enough for a 5th year player to get 1 goal from 7 games, and avg about 10 poss a game (lindsay thomas has far superior numbers last year when omitted after 5 or so games) turner gets a free pass. the 3rd issue is goldy. he is basically just a tap ruckman. his aerial work is hopeless in marking contests. he accumulates very little outside ball as link player. takes may 2 marks a week. he loves to sneak forward to get a goal, but id rather him work hard to defend. so, if north fix these 3 issues, their self imposed handicap would evapourate, and they'd be on their way. there are no shortage options to resolve this.

Did alright without Waite against the Swans.........I think his absence was well covered by Mason Wood who I think kicked 4 pretty useful goals.

Are you expecting Scott to be a great medico as well? Do you expect Brad to heal the injury? Yours is a really weird comment.

Just waiting for the wheels to fall off for North in July and August after Waite gets injured then we'll see how good Scott is.

Hey Perry. Still a few younger players like Durdin, Larkey and McKay too who can contribute if need be to a well functioning side. I reckon the depth is ok if inexperienced. Hope Flash Gordon Narrier gets a run at some point, maybe next year. I was surprised Hawthorn offloaded Hartung. Like Scott said they try and win every game and you never know what might happen.

Makes you wonder why the Swans passed over Sam Murray who may well win the rising star this year.

Just shows that even Clarko and the mighty hawks get it wrong sometimes, Jono O'Rourke, Vickery and now Hartung.

My view last year was clearly to stick with Nathan Buckley but if the club did choose to part with Bucks, as I said at the time, Brad Scott was the coach I would have wanted.

Similar to what I planned to contribute. The 'experts' writing North off seemed to forget the quality remained where you needed the experience and hardened bodies. i.e. Tarrant/Thompson down back, Brown/Waite up forward along with Ziebell/Cunnington and Goldstein in the mid/followers. Throw in Higgins mid/fwd and MacMillan off the back half and that's 9 pretty good senior players. The key in many respects has been getting the cattle back on the park - Ben Jacobs is a coaching tool that without him - Scott was severely hampered. With him - he has more levers to pull. North fans at least know what there is with guys like Mason Wood - he just needed a decent run - - well, 1 game back, let's see how he goes from here. Still need to get Taylor Garner back. Anderson has had a decent run at it. The most important thing is getting guys like these along with Turner, Simpkin and Clarke to build their games tallies. This year is very much a bonus - next year is more realistic - but, you never know for this year. Ahern has still to debut and UDL is the quality young player who will be nurtured along who could yet show his wares in the back half. With big Pruess as backup for Goldstein - there's cover there. What we saw though that is the vulnerability is the impact of the loss of Higgins - the classy ball carrier who executes well is still a rarity in the royal blue and white. I was happy pre-season with our fundamentals and am even happier now - largely because I was dubious about the value of Anderson and Hartung.

He'd hardly be the first player who finally 'got it' after they got delisted.

More likely to be the result of teaching him how to best use his skills and deploying them...rather than just excluding him.

I think everyone is overreacting to the Hartung revelation at North. Like think about it, if you're told to get better at something, but don't get punished for not improving, are you gonna bother? No. But then if you get fired, and someone else offers you a job on the condition that you get better at that thing, are you gonna try a lot harder? Absolutely you are. I think Hartungs improvement is directly tied to how he got to North, not what happened since he got there.

Who are you calling a 'no-one'?

update

The real measure of Brad Scott's abilities are how he has fashioned a competitive team from the personnel at his disposal. Almost all analysts of the game would agree that North Melboune's list is not deep with "A list" players and they have not been the beneficiary of regular high draft picks or big name recruits. Compare the wealth of number one draft picks or very early picks clubs like Melbourne, Carlton, Gold Coast, Brisbane and to a lesser extent,St Kilda, have had in the last ten years and their lack of success, and the honest consistency and genuine competitiveness of North Melbourne during this period when Norths have never had a number one draft pick. Furthermore, North Melboune haven't really had any success luring bona-fide gamechangers to the club. Yes, Shaun Higgins, David Waite, Nick Dal Santo and Ben Jacobs have come to the club in recent years but, with respect, none of these players at the time of their transfers were considered elite "must haves" on a team's list. Look at other club's success in luring A-list talent - Sydney {Franklin}, Collingwood {Treloar}, Richmond {Prestia}, Melbourne {Lever}, Hawthorn {Lake, Mitchell, O'Meara, Burgoyne}, Richmond {Prestia}, Geelong {Dangerfield}. Clearly, in my opinion, Brad Scott has developed a game plan and strategies to get the most out of the resources at his disposal. North Melbourne have been a consistently competitve team who have frequently, not always, played attractive football throughout the tenure of Scott's reign. He has developed players to perform their role - witness Tarrant, Brown and Jacobs particularly. He has high expectations and does not give players easy rewards - look at how long it took Mason Wood to earn a recall before his starring role against Sydney. Brad Scott has a consistent game plan and he expects his players to play to the system. If Scott was coaching another team blessed with better resources, he would,in my view, have at least matched his twin brother's success of at least one premiership. Whilst we are always judging coaches' quality by their number of premierships, I believe we should take a broader view. North Melbourne were smart to offer Brad Scott an extension on his contract last year to ward off feelers from Gold Coast Suns and others. Brad Scott is an elite coach - he is easily in the top six coaches among the current AFL crop.

Brad Scott is a very good coach. Remember only a year or two ago when he'd utterly worked out Richmond and was running rings around Hardwick up in the box. It's almost a pity North don't have many fans. They play far better footy and are more entertaining to watch than Essendon or Carlton have been at any stage over the last two years.

I think both the Scott brothers are brilliant coaches,as a Dogs fan I'm well aware they figured out our game plan,and how to stop us well before anyone else, so I'm looking forward to seeing if North have anything for the high flying Tigers this week.

Both Scott brothers are quality coaches. Both seem very good at getting the best out of young and previously maligned players. I didn't think Jacobs was anything more than just a tagger, but he was brilliant on the weekend. Moving Daw to defence looks to have settled him, and developing a game style that gets the most out of Ben Brown is really paying dividends! Great story if they can sustain it

Apart from sound tactics, Braddles has a good rapport with his players I think. He's good at instilling self belief and he's loyal to his players. Jed Anderson is a good example. I thought the old Hawks had sold us a lemon but North stuck with him and he's having a ball. Maj Daw in defence has been an excellent move. The major surprise in NM's progress is that alleged experts are surprised. They wrote them off with barely a glance. Proven forwards, proven defence, solid middle, young players coming through and a bit of toe. Worth a look you would think? Most don't seem to have looked beyond Champion Data. Last year the lost 6 games by less than 14 points in a 6/16 year with buckets of injury and a many debuts. Not bad at all. I don't think Scott would mention it publicly but the fact that no one rated them is pretty good motivation. Also many North supporters have been up Scott for the rent as well as players like Anderson and Daw. In fact Daw could win the Normie and hoist the premiership cup and people would still say "he's got no ball awareness" or "I'm still not convinced". Scott said the other night he thought the player standard was much better and the comp much closer than many people realised. There is still a long way to go but they are tracking well.

Nah, can't be bothered. I don't care about North. No-one cares about North.