It’s the battle of the bottom two teams on the ladder, but North Melbourne versus Collingwood on Saturday is a game filled with intrigue.
One team at the start of a new era in the Kangaroos and another team, seemingly, approaching the end of theirs in the Magpies.
Collingwood is under enormous pressure to find some form, while the winless Roos have been allowed to go about their rebuild mostly criticism free, particularly given their efforts against the likes of Geelong and Melbourne.
Garry Lyon posed a question to Jordan Lewis and Tim Watson going into the Round 8 clash: “Ahead of Saturday who would you rather be, Nathan Buckley or David Noble?"
“I think I would rather be in the North Melbourne camp to be honest. I just think what we saw with them against Geelong, I saw effort, I saw players that looked like they wanted to play for the coach and then what we saw against Melbourne, it was a lot of the similar sort of stuff,” Lewis told SEN Breakfast.
“The biggest criticism of Collingwood this year is we’re not seeing enough of this stuff.
“I think I’d rather sit in the North Melbourne camp to be honest.
“For me when I watch North Melbourne, a lot of their pre-season was based around offence, so you get really energised as a player to go out and play understanding the coach is giving you the license to take the game on.
“Then what we’re seeing with North Melbourne at the moment is they’re starting to develop a defensive side of their game.
“So there’s a clear way they want to play. At the moment with Collingwood, they’re not playing so well and they haven’t got a clear brand of football, but now they’re starting to throw players around because they don’t know what the right mix is and it’s a credit to Nathan Buckley to be able to do that, but there’s not a clear way in the way they want to play.”
Despite this game being 17th versus 18th, Watson believes the two teams are in very different mental states.
“They are on the improve (North). All the measurements state that they are on the improve,” he said.
“Time spent in front, the fact that players are starting to combine and understand each other’s game plan and what David Noble wants them to do. All of those things are going upwards.
“Nathan Buckley on the other hand, they’re copping it as a team, they look like they’re lacking confidence in each other, Darcy Moore’s gone forward will he go back, that type of thing.”
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