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It's not all over for the Roos yet

Dumsy the Whiz new author
Roar Rookie
27th March, 2019
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Dumsy the Whiz new author
Roar Rookie
27th March, 2019
5

It’s only Round 1. It’s a phrase footy journalists throw around liberally as a justification for their opinions, yet its meaning is lost among most of the footy world.

Fremantle are not flag fancies, Essendon isn’t a safe tip for the wooden spoon and West Coast isn’t likely to crash out of the top eight come finals time.

Whilst Round 1 is certainly helpful in gaging where a team is at it isn’t season defining by any means. A premier example of this is North’s Round 1 loss last year to a Gold Coast outfit that would go on to win another measly three games for the remainder of the season.

In comparison, it took until the penultimate round of the season for North to be ruled out of a top eight finish. They came ninth behind a star-studded Cats outfit not to be sniffed at.

This season has again seen North Melbourne start the season slow, this time with a 82-point loss to cellar-dwellers Fremantle. Again, people are questioning whether their list is fast enough, talented enough – and most of all capable enough. Fans tend to have short memories when it comes to the seasonal trends of teams that aren’t their own, and the response to the Kanga’s loss displays this.

Yes the team played horribly, yes the loss was rancid and no-one in the squad should feel assured of their spot going into Round 1, and North should be duly criticised. But even a loss as diabolical as this doesn’t rule out this team from yet again displaying it’s tenacity and challenging for a finals berth.

In writing this article it was hard to leave out my North Melbourne bias, but perhaps within the Blue and White haze that addles my mind I have found clarity. AFL.com didn’t like my ‘burning question’ for 2019, but especially in the wake of Round 1 I stand by it – ‘will the Roos hit their groove soon enough to make the 2019 finals series?’

Round 1 certainly doesn’t bode well for how soon this will happen, but as they have done for quite some time now, the boys in Blue and White will eventually bounce back and become a formidable opponent for those who face them.

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Hopefully this happens before Round 5, perhaps an optimistic prediction, but they cannot afford go another season of racing from behind by the byes. Hearts to hearts and hands to hands, beneath the blue and white we stand.

P.S – If Scott Thompson isn’t the biggest inclusion of Round 2 then I don’t know what is

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