Why ex-Demons captain paid a visit to North Melbourne

Nathan Jones spent time at North Melbourne training on Tuesday to share his story of hardship and woes during his career at Melbourne.

The former Demons captain experienced many downs in the early days before coming out of the darkness to play finals later in his career.

While Jones never tasted the ultimate success himself, he was a key figure in the foundations the Dees built for what would become a drought-breaking premiership in 2021.

Jones admits it was an “undercover job”, before providing some context as to why he was at Arden Street to meet with the struggling Kangaroos.

“I was surprised that actually got out, I thought it was a bit of an undercover job,” Jones laughed on SEN’s Sportsday.

“I’ve got a few connections down there but Todd Viney was the main one. He gave me a buzz not long ago about possibly coming and having a chat to their playing group, because there was a fair few similarities in the journey that I had and the career that unfolded for me and where a lot of the, in particular, senior North players are at.

“(It was) just to be able to provide some context. I guess when you’re going through that you can lose perspective and for me, it was about reminding them that they’ve put a hell of a lot of ducks in a row and you’ve got a lot of good people around you.

“The marginal gains they’re probably making, they don’t show up with on-field results and performance but you have to stick true to that path as an entire footy club. That was sort of the message.

“They are not too dissimilar to the journey I went on. Hopefully it provided good perspective that they were looking for.”

Jones provided his ideas around patience and setting standards after he played finals in his debut season in 2006 which preceded an 11-year September drought.

He highlighted the similarities between the Roos of today and his Demons, who eventually became steady off-field, which finally led to success.

“It was about providing a bigger picture because particularly when you’re in clubland you can just get stuck in the muck,” he added.

“They wouldn’t have started their season how they would have expected. There would be an element of expectation since ‘Clarko’ (Alastair Clarkson) has come on. They seem pretty steady off-field with some of their more senior appointments, they’ve got good people around them like Todd Viney and a handful of others. They’re well-positioned.

“It just doesn’t happen overnight, you don’t go from where they’ve come from, which is absolute rock bottom, to shooting up the ladder, and that’s synonymous with my journey.

“Having been through multiple coaches, CEOs and presidents throughout my time playing the game, it wasn’t until we had stability and transparency across every department and a real clear direction that we started to see inroads and achieve what we wanted to with on-field success.

“There was a hell of a lot of small wins along the way that can get missed if you don’t have the right perspective on things.”

Jones recalled how the Dees continued to battle under Paul Roos before the fortunes of the club truly shifted once Simon Goodwin took over.

“Melbourne’s 2021 premiership didn’t occur overnight. That was probably five or six years in the making of groundwork,” Jones continued.

“Even in those first couple of years under ‘Roosy’ we were still a very average side and not achieving much on-field success. We knew that the foundations we were laying and the standards we were setting were going to lead us on the right path.

“We just had to stay committed to that journey and block out the outside noise.”

From a Demons point of view, Jones hit back at a suggestion from Nathan Buckley that the Dees didn’t look fit during their 92-point loss to Fremantle on the weekend.

“I wasn't a fan to be honest, I thought that was drawing a pretty long bow,” Jones said.

“Any team can look lacking in energy and spirit when you get belted by 90 points.

“When you’re losing you actually tend to work a hell of a lot harder from a GPS standpoint. You sound the majority of the game chasing and don’t look too efficient or anywhere near the quality of a top-four team.

“They’ve got to get back to winning the contest which fuelled their game, their confidence and their belief.”