‘Car crash’ scrap shows North young gun is OK: Clarkson
Justin Chadwick |
North Melbourne’s wrecking ball George Wardlaw is being backed to regain his midfield mojo in Saturday night’s clash with Fremantle at Optus Stadium.
Wardlaw’s output has dipped notably over the past three AFL games, with a 14-disposal, four-clearance effort against Richmond followed by even quieter games against Collingwood (11 disposals, one clearance) and West Coast (nine disposals, zero clearances).
Last year, Wardlaw averaged 19.1 disposals and 4.8 clearances per game, and Essendon great Matthew Lloyd even recently labelled the 21-year-old as the “Dangerfield of the next 15 years”.
Wardlaw was so quiet in last week’s 10-point win over West Coast in Bunbury that coach Alastair Clarkson moved him into attack for most of the last quarter.
“He’s going OK. He’s just not playing the footy to the level that he’d like just at the present time, but he’s a warrior,” Clarkson said.
“We pushed him forward in the last part of the game, and there was a contest on the wing – it was like a car crash.
“There were four in the contest, and no one gave up … bodies flying everywhere.
“George was probably the catalyst for the collision.
“He wasn’t finding the footy as much as we’d like in the middle of the ground, so we put Luke Parker in there … and George did some good things for us forward.”
Clarkson is keen to play Wardlaw in the midfield against Fremantle’s powerful on-ball brigade.
“His best is a high level,” Clarkson said.
“Guys go through little patches in their game where they’re not finding the footy as much as they’d like, and he has the flexibility to play forward.
“But he’ll play midfield again this week.”
North Melbourne, who have sold home games to West Coast and Fremantle, have been enjoying their extended stay in Western Australia, and they even received a visit from former Test stars Mitch and Shaun Marsh this week.
Fremantle (7-5) have catapulted themselves back into the premiership picture on the back of impressive wins over GWS, Port Adelaide and Gold Coast.
And with games in Perth against North Melbourne, Essendon and St Kilda to come over the next three weeks, Fremantle have an excellent chance to entrench themselves in the top eight.
But the first step of that is a win off the back of their bye week – something they haven’t been able to do over the past three years.
“Most importantly, we’ve tried not to make it a narrative,” Dockers coach Justin Longmuir said of the key to beating the bye hoodoo.
“(We) understand that the things we’ve been doing prior to the bye have been working, so it’s been more getting back to that process.
“Rather than getting caught up in, ‘We need to win off the bye’ or ‘Previous byes haven’t worked for us’.”
AAP
