Fads. They sweep through the corridors of high schools like a Mongol hoarde careening through the Chinese Peasant reserves team.

For many adolescents those first experiences of school yard crazes are their first and most seminal lessons in property ownership, economics and parenting.

I was not immune to their appeal. Who isn’t at that age? But I had an inconsistent strike rate in terms of nailing the respective briefs.

Dad wouldn’t fork out for a pair of Doc Martens so I was stuck in a pair of old Blundstones until the sole of one fell off. I called it the ‘Spud Farmer in Paris’ look.

I did have a ripper of a hacky sack for a couple of weeks in year nine. I’d even gotten mum to unstitch the seam, take out some of the beans (it made it softer and more ‘hackyable’) and sew it back together again. Then a prick from year 12 threw it into the paddock behind the A Corridoor and I never saw it again.

Luckily for me fads move fast, cos’ I was never the first one in or the first one out. I just tried to keep up.

My tazo collection was less than inspiring and, frankly, I thought tazos were less than engaging. That and I was a proud Pizza Shapes man and found the consumption of Burger Rings and Twisties necessary to obtain a respectable amount of the plastic discs a betrayal of my Arnotts roots.

Alas, I never managed to own a Rip Curl wallet and my Tamagotchi experience was cut tragically short after it was dropped in a toilet (somewhat of a cosmic irony as I never once picked up the poo that my Tamgotchi left piled upon the screen).

But then there were yo-yos.

They burst onto the high school scene like Carey into a pack of Friday night defenders.

Some of us may sneer at our British cousins for their old world elitism and established social division between the toffs and the chavs, but the purity and viciousness of the class system that was born from the yo-yo pandemic of the Central Victorian mid-nineties would have had Queen Victoria herself reaching for a spare copy of The Communist Manifesto.

Sleeping was the key. If the yo-yo slept (spun continuously at the end of its string) you could do more tricks, impress more girls (or boys) or claim victory (we were an imaginative lot) in the sleeping contests that absorbed the hearts and minds of teenagers like an episode of Heartbreak High.

If you owned a Brain there was no question – you were emperor of the playground.

Those things could sleep longer than Captain Snooze and their owners had enough time to ‘walk the dog’, ‘go around the world’, make a crude comment about cheaper yo-yos and knock off a choggy milk before the bloody thing stopped spinning.

The Brains were invincible – the Wayne Carey of yo-yos – but beneath them an ocean of mid-table yo-yos fought for their owner’s place in the power struggle of social hierarchy.

Me? I had a Silver Bullett. Cool name and all (maybe that’s why I asked Mum to buy it for me, in hindsight I should have at least pushed for a Golden Atom) but the bloody thing was an absolute insomniac.

I remember shouting, ‘Sleep you bastard!’ an awful lot at the time.

In footy terms once again, if the Brain was Wayne Carey, the Silver Bullett was Bradley Moran.

Oddly enough, I hadn’t thought of yo-yos or tazos or Bradley Moran for quite some time until last Sunday came to pass.

But at some point during the third quarter of the Hawthorn North game it dawned on me that our performance up to that point was in fact bringing back memories of those painful hours spent in anguished despair trying to get my Bullett to sleep.

I’d cast and cast and cast again and the mongrel of a thing would snap straight back up into my hand.

Our attempts to break down the Hawthorn half back line were eerily similar. We wanted to keep the ball ‘sleeping’ in our forward fifty, but time and time again it kept spinning back into our face.

We just couldn’t lock it in – and once they got the ball they kept it.

North Melbourne couldn’t get the yo-yo to sleep.

Our forward line is particularly inexperienced at the moment. On Sunday we once again saw those moments that we hope will lead to periods of ongoing dominance (tackling, harassing, etc.) – but at the moment are not enough to get the job done.

The stats show that we’re there and there abouts.

We dominated centre clearances (23-9) had more contested possessions (135-122) and equaled the Hawks in overall disposal efficiency.

Unfortunately, marks inside our forward fifty were rarer than a Dennis Pagan cuddle and we’re just not quite experienced or disciplined enough to control the game for long periods and effectively stop the other mob from doing the same.

This is particularly pertinent when the other mob’s ‘go’ is controlling the footy. The Hawks love uncontested ball – like a Mediterranean union rep they have mastered the art of making life easy for themselves where it shouldn’t be.

They chip the footy here and there like some sort of uncontested water torture.

Indeed, for the last decade Clarkson has formed his team to move the ball from defence to attack with the delicate caress of professional souvlaki eaters.

And for us, I can’t help but feel that a ridiculously inexperienced, injury-laden North Melbourne forward line was somewhat akin to a sumptuously fried slice of halloumi. We offered the perfect amount of resistance to challenge but not defeat the palette that is Hawthorn’s ‘Plan A’.

We know they’re a good team. They haven’t forgotten how to be a good team. And they’re adding to the veterans who have and are leaving.

Take James Sicily. Never has a surname and a head been more at odds with each other, but he can take an intercept mark.

So can Gunston. So can Burton. So can Smith. And they can all kick or kick and run and they all get to the right places – I would to if I thought Luke Hodge would headbutt me on live TV if I didn’t.

As for the tough stuff – Tom Mitchell is a fantastic player. Trying to stop him getting the ball is like trying to stop a fly from landing on a meat tray on a hot day. It’s going to happen, but you may as well swat it when you can to try and limit the contamination.

Oh well. It wasn’t as though they jumped us, not exactly. It was more like a slow mugging – like they gradually talked us into giving them our lunch money without needing to go through the nastiness of ‘roughing us up’.

The margin got out to fifty five points in the third quarter without ever feeling as though we’d done a a hell of a lot wrong. Just those little cock-ups: the odd turnover and (I suspect) some less than ideal defensive structures.

At our worst, we still have a penchant for the absurd: like kicking crucial defensive balls to an outnumbered Nathan Hrovat rather than look for a ruckman, or handballing to a player running passed the marker without the marker checking to see that he and the runner were already surrounded by defenders.

On the flip side, and all the while, we still create our moments.

Ben Brown not only returned from his sleep like a young Lazarus, but threw himself into the Launceston air like an angel taking flight.

My lasting recollection of this game will be the greatest mark that never was.

It was a mark. Mistakes happen. Lord knows I make more than a few.

It’s a shame, though. Holy smokes, it was a mighty, mighty mark.

If Cyril Rioli had been not paid that mark Bruce Mcavaney would have swum across the Tasman to lodge a formal on-air complaint by the start of the third quarter.

Even Brian Taylor’s call of it was fantastic.

Funny bloke, Taylor. His commentary is exponentially better the further away he is from Matthew Richardson and Luke Darcy. If Taylor was a school boy his report card would read: ‘has potential to achieve in his chosen field but is easily distracted by others which affects his ability to focus’.

So, the mark wasn’t paid. Brown was still the dominant player on the field. For a man who looks like a human giraffe, he’s bloody good at ground level and has remarkable balance on the turn. He’s become so very dangerous for opposition teams to handle.

There is, I fear, only one thing that could make Ben Brown more of a waking myth among men, and that is a ginger, handlebar moustache. Alas for us who live in such a time, but our universe simply isn’t ready for Ben Brown to start getting around with facial hair.

Picture it – but only if you’re ok with the possibility of your mind exploding.

Funny things, moustaches. I’m starting to wonder whether the ones getting around the North Melbourne Football Club aren’t different at all, but actually a single entity, transferring itself from one young player to another, bestowing the temporary owner with it’s magical powers of self-confidence and flair.

Like the pair of old jeans that were passed around in The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, maybe the moustache that began above the top lip of Cameron Zurhaar and has now appeared above the top lip of Trent Dumont is the real reason behind the growing confidence of our younger brigade. If Jy Simpkin grows one in the next few weeks you’ll know I’m onto something.

Taylor Garner currently has a moustache too, which flies in the face of my ‘one, true, magical moustache’ theory. But it is always possible that after the magical strands had left him (maybe after his ‘arrival party’ during the Essendon game this year) he is desperately trying to recreate the power of the ‘Tash with an organic growth of his own making.

The Brotherhood of the Travelling Whiskers? Not for me to say…

I digress.

But Cameron Zurhaar did not. In for Ziebell. In for the captain. Zurhaar didn’t let him down. His first two goals in senior footy and two rippers they were. And in them a microcosm of all he has to offer: the ability to win contested footy, crumb packs, break clear of tackles with core strength and a burst of speed, slick foot skills and (most endearingly) an instinct that says ‘see goal – shoot at goal’.

A handful of games and he’s already a high impact player. More to come, please.

He is one of a bunch of young players who 2017 has seen thrown into the big time only to blossom and bloom.

Mountford started in a tizz on Sunday but settled at the back and found his rhythm beautifully, peaking with his three quarter time set shot. Ice man.

He and Ryan Clarke continue to find the footy at the dour end of the ground. Alongside them Neilson worked off his man to hit contests with the timing of a Michael Flatley toe-flick and Robbie Tarrant spread his mighty arms to hold the entirety of our defensive system in some semblance of coherence and structural integrity.

Meanwhile, the sight of Preuss (or any North ruckman) taking a mark is enough to have me weeping tears of joy these days. The big boy took a few.

Mcevoy is a crafty old warhorse. He was good, very good around the ground. But at stoppages Preuss at times treated him with the sort of physical disdain I reserved for my younger brothers before their untimely growth spurts.

Beneath them Swallow once again drove the tackling machine (13 in total) whilst McDonald drove the tackle-breaking machine, wheeling onto that left foot with an old-school priority for gaining metres that’s enough to bring another tear to the eye of supporters that have developed a facial tick at the sight of backwards and sideways ball movement.

And Higgins (yet again) showed us that which we already knew (while getting tackled around his ankles): he is our most polished ball carrier and passer by foot and should be regarded as an A grader across all midfield facets of the competition.

As it was, we gave them a start and never got close enough to challenge – really challenge.

But once again, late in the third term we showed that very special thing, the ability to score quickly and score frequently.

It’s enough for the realists to see the long term potential and for the whimsical to take joy in the present.

Long may it continue. The importance of defence in premiership sides is understood by everyone (the club included), but for the joy of the spectacle and the joy of the player – kicking goals is where the heart of footy truly lies.

Give me the Shinboner way any day.

We roll again, for the last time in Melbourne this year. St. Kilda at Etihad. This Sunday. It’s not our home game, but you can get in on your membership.

Will Ziebell return? If so he may resemble El Cid more than Il Capitano.

Thomas is playing the most unselfish role of recent times at an extended stint at Werribee – a level at which he looks and is a class above.

Or maybe this is the week that Ben McKay will make a long earned debut – although a final round clash at the more unassuming venue of the GABBA may be more to Scott’s taste.

Whatever the team looks like, I can’t think of a more appropriate way of bidding adieu to Nick Riewoldt than being there to witness him not make the distance from a set shot of thirty metres one last time, and for North to dash the Saints’ one last hope of a finals berth with a stirring victory.

With Brown kicking twelve and taking mark of the year.

If the opposite occurs, I will of course accept all blame, having publicly jinxed the entire enterprise on these pages.

That’s ok. I’ve already seen enough this season to know we’re headed in the right direction.

And unlike the yo-yo, the tazo, DocMartens and Tamagotchi, North Melbourne is not a fad to come and go between the generations.

It’s here to stay.

Come on you Roo boys.