Upon the cloud-grey horse the stocky, dark haired man sits proudly and true.

No, it’s not a momento of David Calthorpe trying his hand at rodeo.

It is Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French and most of Europe. He is grim. His hand is tucked into his jacket like a pre-carnation of Al Bundy. His mouth set in a line more impenetrable than the lines of his famous Old Guard – the greatest soldiers on earth.

He is grim because he marched his army into a Russian winter and was defeated. Behind him lies death and despair. Ahead lies the thousand mile march back to Paris through the frozen waste of Eastern Europe. Further ahead of him still lies Waterloo.

In my mind’s eye Brad Scott has eased himself into a leather recliner in the sitting room of the Golden Clipboard Clubhouse. They have chapters in all capital cities.

In my mind’s eye Brad raises his glass of cognac and, with a rueful grimace, toasts the general with whom he shares a true mutual experience: a brutal loss away from home.

It’s not really the same thing. Scott didn’t choose to march the team to Adelaide against the advice of his most experienced consiglieri. The AFL fixture made that decision for us. But, like Napoleon, once arrived Scott too experienced a rapid depletion in man power and an enemy willing and able to starve his troops of any opportunity to forage for supplies.

The Port Adelaide Campaign: we were doomed before we left.

To undertake a quarter-by-quarter review of Saturday’s game would be an undertaking in masochism beyond even the scope of this try hard die hard.

We got smashed. Funnily enough, I do initially recall (about 10 minutes into the first term) thinking that we weren’t doing too badly. The defence was holding its own, the midfield was getting beaten on the spread but not blown away and our forwards, well, they hadn’t had much of a sniff as yet. But we were holding our own.

Which just goes to show how quickly the dyke can break.

I wonder if Napoleon noticed things slipping slowly away at Waterloo, or whether he too thought his midfield had the potential to win back stoppage superiority until the Prussians arrived late and started to dominate in the ruck?

Either way, by the time I regained focus (after becoming momentarily intrigued by my delicious bowl of potato wedges) we were six goals down, I was demanding a head count to anyone who’d listen and the little Dutch village of Ardenstraat had been washed away in a Port Adelaide-engineered tsunami.

Our first goal was the equivalent of hand ploughing a rocky paddock with a knife and fork – it was hard work.

And it set the tone for the afternoon, during which (a bold strategic ploy) we surrendered the corridor and kept the pockets for ourselves.

Didn’t work. I admire the courage needed to even initially back-in our system against the overwhelming evidence of its shortcomings, but the sight of Power midfielders striding through the middle of Adelaide Oval and finding more easy targets than a kindergarten coits competition got really old really quickly.

But hey! Maybe it was actually a measure of respect for the career that Robbie Tarrant has forged from the crippling hindrance of injuries and self-doubt.

Maybe it was a ‘Happy 100th’ present, gift wrapped from Ken Hinkley, senior ranking member of the Golden Clipboard.

The card could have been presented to him pre-game in a brief and unobtrusive ceremony:



Welcome to your 100th game, Mr. Tarrant. As a token of our appreciation we have decided to involve you in 95% of today’s play. Love, Ken Hinkley (GC member 34) and Brad Scott (GC member 2956).

To his credit, Tarrant didn’t seem to mind.

Did you notice Charlie Dixon do much on Saturday? I didn’t, apart from a bump on his head that made him look like he’d been bitten by a cartoon bee and a junk time goal that didn’t mean much.

Although to be fair to Dixon, junk time had pretty much kicked in at the 25 minute mark of the first quarter.

And he did do a fair bit of work up the ground. And there were plenty more dudes in green and black v-necks ready and willing to occupy the rampant space inside our defensive fifty.

Indeed, without a certain bald dairy farmer and a former captain who (according to many) is supposed to be playing VFL, we wouldn’t have won a clearance.

‘Clearance?’ I hear you say.

‘What is…clearance?’

It’s like our outside mids have forgotten what it is as well. When they get given the ball it’s like giving a roast dinner to a trauma victim – the shock involved in receiving the act of kindness is so intense that rather than eat they put the plate down and begin to cry.

A dropped handball, a bad bounce, a wrong turn. Even when we’re out, we’re not out. Like the mafia. But without the jazzy suits.

You know you’re doing it tough when your greatest ambition as a supporter is that North manage to halve a contest.

‘Yes North!’ I murmur fiercely behind a clenched fist that punches the bar in appreciation – not of a goal or smooth transition to a leading forward marking 30 metres out from goal – but rather of a posse of three or more North players managing to force a ball-up on our half back flank.

That’s a win in the current climate.

Port don’t have this problem. In the first quarter the damage was done in a clearance obliteration and it didn’t matter that we scrapped like we always do for the rest of the game.

Brad Ebert is their Ben Cunnington. He’s a clearance machine and this time we didn’t have the cattle to go with him. Normally Gibson would be an option, but it felt like he had one of his bad days. The kind in which he embraces his inner Buddhist monk by (with the whimsical flick of a ridiculous handball) destroying the good work he worked tirelessly for via repeated 200 metre sprints.

Ollie Wines has thighs slightly wider than my first car. He’s built for contested footy. For pity’s sake, Powell-Pepper is 19 and looks like something spawn from the depths of Isengard itself. Our 19 year olds look like they’ve just stepped out of an NSYNC concert.

On hair, it must be nice to be able to play Chad Wingard and Robbie Gray as permanentish forwards.

Not many players can get 30+ possies and kick 3 goals to boot – all the while looking like the goth kid from SouthPark.

It must annoy Ken Hinkley. He strikes me as a short-back-and-sides kind of dude. Chad had better hope his good form continues, because you can just picture old mate Ken giving some immediate and direct feedback as soon as Chad’s possie count drops below his season average.

What can you say, at the end of the day?

Port are a finals-bound team playing at full strength matching up against a motley crew of the young, the bold and the restless.

Hell – their half back line looks like a patrol of the night’s watch.

They have an in-form ruckman and key forwards that can run through the middle and back. They’re peaking. We’re building the ‘platform’, as Brad said after the game.

Urgh. It’s not pretty at the moment, is it?

Stifle them on the flanks. Relinquish the corridor. Lose the ball and wave it goodbye as it leaves the area. I’m sure that’s not actually our game plan, but to the critical eye it doesn’t seem far off.

And our defensive positioning (particularly at stoppages) isn’t great. The first quarter and the last were particularly nasty. Hopefully it’s the inexperience of our youthful players bringing things to a head, but even from the comfort of a pub stool in Lower Plenty the sight of our defenders and kids being sucked towards the ball and ball carrier like zombies staggering after a radiation survivor was enough to have mild-mannered mothers of three blaspheming into their shardees.

By contrast our forward 50 usually resembled the ‘un-sorted’ part of a hoarder’s storage room.

And it was here, among forward entries that fell like sporadic dirty bombs and amongst a forward unit that moved with the cohesion of a restless chicken yard, that Cameron Zurhaar made his debut.

Debut. Makes you think of town halls and community notice boards and non-alcoholic punch and 16 year old girls being presented to a room of old women in long dresses and elbow length gloves.

Debut.

Zurhaar’s was more akin to that of a Roman slave on grand final day at the Colosseum. Although seeing as though he’s currently sporting a moustache that evokes images of a pre-pubescent school boy forging his birth date to enrol in a pre-modern infantry division, perhaps a newly enrolled drummer boy in a Napoleonic brigade is a more apt comparison to make.

He was thrown onto a half forward flank with no more than a rusty bayonet and an oversized helmet (with some suspicious dents).

But by God, he had a crack. Forget his overall stat line, our second goal was set up by Zurhaar’s penetrating kick that he earned from a strong lead-up mark. That kick led to a pack that Majak crashed like it was a frat party.

Come on, Maj. That’s what we need more of. Embrace the destruction.

Zurhaar continued to present and work all day in a forward line that, despite technically being invited to the game, were never really involved in the actual event.

Except for Brown. Bonafide Ben Brown. Now third in the Coleman race after another 3 goal haul – it was the sort of lone-hand performance normally reserved for teenage boys’ bedrooms.

And like the goings on in teenage boys’ bedrooms, don’t expect to hear much of Brown’s form being discussed in polite society. Unless you play for an interstate team or have a highly questionable moustache it’s hard to gain traction in the AFL media as a key forward at the moment.

Maybe Zurhaar is onto something with his soluble lip coating after all…

Ben Cunnington. He needs no segue. Forget how well you thought he played. He played better than that. He was better than even the biggest cheerleader thought he was. That’s how good he was. In a match in which North Melbourne were -36 in contested possessions, Ben Cunnington was 7 contested possessions away from breaking the all time contested possession record. That’s how good he was.

And it looked like he was playing angry. Like he was pissed off at the fact that we were getting smashed. Like he wanted to do something about it. He did. 11 clearances and 26 contested possessions. 33 disposals and a handful of exquisite handballs among them. His burst of speed out of the stoppage has improved as his overall power has increased. Plus he’s bald. Plus he was wearing red jocks. Just when I thought I couldn’t respect him any more…

If Cunnington was our greatest, he wasn’t our only winner on the day.

Mountford allowed Travis Boak the opportunity to observe Port’s midfield dominance without actually getting anywhere near the footy in any meaningful way. This kid is taking serious AFL scalps and in doing so is learning the running patterns and work rate that will lead him to the positions required when he is no longer an apprentice run-with player but the hard-running accumulator he was born to be. His was another mini-victory that may get brushed over in a scoreboard whitewash.

Delve, comrades. Delve and find the mini-victories that live beneath the brush strokes.

No need to delve to notice Daniel Nielson’s game. Those who didn’t watch may see a match report and the goal tally of ‘3’ next to Robbie Gray.

To see only that and move on would be to administer a ‘Hurricane Carter’ level of injustice to Nielson’s performance. That Gray ended up with 3 goals is testimony to the prowess of the game’s premier small forward. But Neilson did more than hold his own. Starting with the first intercept mark of the game he stayed with Gray like a Scandinavian sheep dog. This kid has (dare I say it) Rance-like agility for a bloke over 190 centimetres tall. One of Gray’s goals was from questionable free (the volume was down so I didn’t hear the explanation, but I was outraged nonetheless) and the other two were Joe-the-Goosish type stuff. That Neilson can play on players like Gray is a huge bonus for our long term defensive stocks – even the most latent of observers must see that this guy is the natural Scott Thompson replacement.

And Atley is hitting the scoreboard. Repeat: Atley is hitting the scoreboard. If you can’t see his improvement and consistency on output this year, you may need to re-calibrate your expectations. Chris Judd he is not, but Shaun Atley is now a consistent contributor around stoppages forward of centre.

While McDonald is, well, McDonald. He plays every game as you imagine you would, as a Shinboner first and an AFL player second. Expectations of his performance have likewise been re-calibrated this year to suit the potential of a consistent, gun midfielder.

For the rest – there were moments.

But what hope did we really have?

We all hoped for victory, we all expected effort. And despite the score line, that’s what we got. 88 tackles don’t happen if you don’t crack in – our issue was not one of intent but execution.

And inventory.

Mitch Hibberd is gone for the year with a shoulder. Ditto Corey Wagner with an ankle. Add to those casualties the accumulated 40 minute loss of Shaun Higgins and Scott Thompson to concussion tests and at times on the weekend Brad Scott must have felt like a stock holder on Black Tuesday.

I’d paste our current injury list here, but I’d risk crashing the server.

Suffice to say that you and I and your mum and your weird neighbour are now in serious contention for a call-up this weekend. I wonder if that family of field mice are still living in my old boots.

But if ever there was a week to gather all Shinboners great and small to the cause, this is it.

Essendon.

To outline the nature and narrative of my relationship to a club that is our antithesis in ethos, pathos, logos and logo is a task that will be undertaken another time.

But Saturday afternoon is a chance.

A chance to somehow, from the very depths of the mud and crud that have lined the North Melbourne laneways since Essendon barred our entry into the VFL again and again and again, scrap and niggle and tackle and plough forward with enough honest pressure and intent to win to put a royal blue line through their 2017 finals aspirations.

There’s a thought to get you out of bed on a frosty Thursday morning.

Last week Dumont responded to demotion with a 34 possie declaration of intent in a Werribee team that is even more short-handed than North itself. He and Clarke are ready to go.

So, maybe, is Waite. If he’s fit, he’s back in. And that will give both Scott and Worsfold something to think about.

Wagner and Hibberd are out. If Ziebell plays, it may be on a golf cart. That’s the only way I can see him getting above waking pace.

Our memories of Ben Jacobs and Sam Wright are fading like the wind-blown smoke of a long silenced artillery barrage.

It is what it is. Scott has already flagged ‘throwing guys in the deep end’ and we as a supporter base have a responsibility to understand the message.

I’ll be surprised if we don’t see Majak playing forward/ruck for the rest of the season. We’re going to continue to see debutants and sub-10 gamers matched up on All Australians. We’re going to see small forwards in the backline and a ruck combination that might not work in the long term being tried and tried again.

It’s partly re-building and partly bad luck.

But we’re North Melbourne. We never submit.

Like Napoleon’s Old Guard, even when we retreat we walk backwards, facing the opposition with every step.

And unlike the French in Russia and Waterloo, come what may on the footy field, we live to fight another day.

See you on Saturday.

Come on you Roo boys.