Crocker tastes win after tough losses
The Age
Monday August 10, 2009
DARREN Crocker will put his case for the North Melbourne job this week with at least a little knowledge of what it's like to be a successful AFL coach after a 62-point win over Melbourne gave the Kangaroos their first joy since Dean Laidley's resignation after round 12.North had since lost to the Bulldogs, Sydney, Hawthorn, Brisbane Lions and Carlton and drawn with Richmond, yet been competitive in all but the trip to the Gabba. Crocker credited yesterday's breakthrough to a playing group whose application he said he could not fault since he assumed the caretaker's role at Arden Street."They've been really, really good since I took over. I couldn't have been more pleased with the way they've applied themselves throughout the week, but also their effort in a lot of the games," Crocker said."Probably Brisbane's the aberration with that, Jonathan Brown got hold of us up there, but other than that we've been in most games that we've played."It's great for them to get some reward for the effort and also the fact they've been able to keep getting themselves up after some pretty disappointing close losses."Crocker said he was merely one part of the process of finding the next North Melbourne coach and did not expect to discover whether he would be that man until season's end."I wouldn't expect to hear anything until the end of the season, not in the next three weeks, but if it does happen in the next three weeks so be it. I don't know what they're doing, we'll just see what happens," he said.North was well served up forward by Todd Goldstein (five goals), Drew Petrie (three) and Lachlan Hansen (three), with Crocker especially pleased for Goldstein, whose emergence as a ruckman-forward stalled somewhat with a jittery performance in front of goal against Carlton in round 18."He's worked extremely hard to get to where he is," Crocker said. "He was really disappointed as a young fella last week, kicking three points against Carlton. He went out, applied himself, did some goalkicking during the week, and then to come out today, play well in the ruck, push forward, take some catches and obviously kick straight, it's just a great example."Melbourne coach Dean Bailey, subjected to unprecedented scrutiny for signs of tanking in the club's post-siren loss to Richmond, said the Demons had continued to experiment yesterday without the same focus.Bailey, who said he hoped the media attention given to the Melbourne-Richmond game did not have an effect on his players, said the Demons had placed players in similar positions against North Melbourne to their placement in the contentious Richmond game."We're still experimenting with players. It's just that, the fact is some of our blokes played in similar sort of positions last week," he said."All of a sudden, our second week along, it's not as €” maybe it's not as prominent. But we still changed players around in positions."The Demons, who lost key defenders Matthew Warnock and Jared Rivers from last week's team, had to use Cale Morton and Linden Dunn as tall backs, and used Paul Johnson forward yesterday.The Melbourne coach said if the players had been affected by the scrutiny of the week, it was only marginal in terms of its impact on them yesterday. "If you're involved in a football department you're always going to get scrutiny," he said.
© 2009 The Age