North people have little doubt that the resting of 10 players in round 23 was necessary and that the decision to do so has been vindicated by their performance against the Tigers. While technically speaking there were only nine players dropped for the final round, Brent Harvey was used as the sub and played only a quarter in the forward pocket. Boomer does more running than that in a light training session.

Since so much of the focus from that elimination final has been on the yellow-and-bleak eliminated party, rather than the eliminators, the significance of the resting has attracted little comment since Sunday.

The vast majority of North's most influential players on Sunday were those who were sat down by Brad Scott and given the previous weekend off. Harvey and Jarrad Waite (rested) were clearly best, followed, in no specific order, by Todd Goldstein (rested), Andrew Swallow (rested), Ben Cunnington (rested), Michael Firrito (rested), Jack Ziebell (no rest), Shaun Higgins (rested). Ben Jacobs, who smothered the hapless Trent Cotchin and would have earned big brownie points from the coach, was a non-rester.

The other resters, for what it's worth, were Nick Dal Santo, Scott Thompson and Sam Wright – each of whom was respectable against Richmond.

North's view is that they merely did what was logical, given their circumstances, and that other clubs would have done the same in their shoes.