Brent Harvey has touched on a few different subjects regarding North Melbourne and the state of the current list.
The Kangaroos champion and part-time development coach covered a range of topics on SEN SA Breakfast including highly-paid recruit Jared Polec, Ben Brown’s future and the quality youth running around in the royal blue and white stripes.
On Jared Polec:
“I’m not in the hub. I don’t speak to Brady (Rawlings) or Rhyce (Shaw) once a week or anything like that, so I don’t know exactly what’s going on.
“But Jared’s game was fairly decent against Carlton (in Round 8), I think he topped the possessions for North Melbourne that day. So there must be something else, it mustn’t be with ball in hand, it must be something else that’s going on.
“Whether they want to look at young kids coming through?
“You look at someone like Jared, by all reports he’s on 650 to 750 grand (a year), something like that. It’s a waste of money sitting him in, well it’s not even the twos anymore because they are in a hub playing once every three weeks or something.
“I’m not exactly sure and can’t shed too much light on it to be completely honest with you.”
On Ben Brown:
“I think you’ve got be a little bit careful around trading players out, who potentially is your best player in the team.
“Take out this year, but in the last three years Ben has been nearly the best forward. He’s kicked consistently 60 goals every year.
“I’m a true believer where I think the forwards are a byproduct of what happens up the ground. Clearly North Melbourne haven’t been the best team this year and their inside 50 stuff is not excellent as well.
“Yes, Ben has had a lean year but he also has to rely on that midfield and the half-forwards getting the football a little bit more and a little bit better to him.
“I think you’ve got be careful. I still think we’ve got a good young list that we can build around and someone like Ben, they don’t grow on trees.
“It’s just which avenue the club want to take. If they want to trade a good player out to get something good and Ben Brown’s name always gets thrown up. I know Shaun Higgins’ name has always been thrown up, Jared Polec’s name has been thrown up now.
“If you want a good player or draft pick in you’re going to have to give something up. I’m not on list committee, we’ve got a couple of really good guys doing that, and I don’t know which way they want to go.
“Whether they think our list is good enough to keep Ben and keep going with that structure.”
On the list and youth:
“I always look at the youth. Curtis Taylor, Bailey Scott, Tarryn Thomas.
“Tristan Xerri is going to be an excellent ruckman. He’s aggressive, I love the way he goes about it.
“Jack Mahony has played a lot of football this year, Lachie Hosie has played the last couple of games. The more football we can give to those young guys coming through and that experience, once they’ve got 20 and 30 games under their belt, they’ll go again to the next level.
“Cam Zurhaar is another one.
“I think we’ve got five Rising Star nominees in the team so you can build something around that model pretty well.
“I still believe we need a couple more good A-grade players into the football club but keep the youth. Don’t go off and get recycled players that are C-graders. I don’t really believe that helps.
“But you can build a team around some of the youth we’ve got.”
The Kangaroos sit 17th on the ladder with three wins from 14 games. They next meet Port Adelaide at Metricon Stadium on Saturday night.
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