Episode 79 - Clarko Fallout - Oatsy's take.

But to cut a long story short, I knew Jordan Russell from the past.

Met Dan McPherson.

We had Anthony Rocker there around the table.

And there was only about probably 10 of us at the time.

And at that time, there was just little squeaks coming out about Will Clarkson come to North Melbourne, et cetera.

And what comes to my mind is sitting right opposite Geordie Russell, I said, hey, mate, is this really going to happen? Well, there's a lot of murmurings on what's going on.

And him and Dan McPherson looking straight across at me, didn't blink an eyelid, never said a word.

And there was probably one or two seconds silence.

I said, okay, and we went on with conversation.

Now, I pretty much knew what that meant and told our boys in our North Melbourne podcast team at the time.

But back then, we were going through absolute turmoil at the club.

We'd been through coaches in Reece Shaw, David Noble, Brad Scott cooked the joint, as we all know.

And he's gone on to Cook Essin, so that'll stay with him forever.

But, you know, then we had guys like Darren Crocker, Lee Adams, and look, even Brett Ratton filled in for a period of time.

When Sonja got Clarko, North Melbourne absolutely hit the jackpot there, big time.

And by that, I mean, stability was shocking.

We were struggling to get any form of players to come to the place.

And you sort of felt like this guy's going to help us rise above, And somehow give us a bit of purpose, a bit of excitement.

And through that, we saw the membership numbers change up around about the 58 or 60 mark, I think, from memory this year.

So for whatever's happened, and we knew that you could see there's probably some holes in our defence.

There was probably... a few different things that we questioned, but they went from three wings to another three wings to five wings to nine wings.

So there's obviously some growth in that.

But to cut a long story short, I knew Jordan Russell from the past.

Met Dan McPherson.

We had Anthony Rocker there around the table.

And there was only about probably 10 of us at the time.

And at that time, there was just little squeaks coming out about Will Clarkson come to North Melbourne, et cetera.

And what comes to my mind is sitting right opposite Geordie Russell, I said, hey, mate, is this really going to happen? Well, there's a lot of murmurings on what's going on.

And him and Dan McPherson looking straight across at me, didn't blink an eyelid, never said a word.

And there was probably one or two seconds silence.

I said, okay, and we went on with conversation.

Now, I pretty much knew what that meant and told our boys in our North Melbourne podcast team at the time.

But back then, we were going through absolute turmoil at the club.

We'd been through coaches in Reece Shaw, David Noble, Brad Scott cooked the joint, as we all know.

And he's gone on to Cook Essin, so that'll stay with him forever.

But, you know, then we had guys like Darren Crocker, Lee Adams, and look, even Brett Ratton filled in for a period of time.

When Sonja got Clarko, North Melbourne absolutely hit the jackpot there, big time.

And by that, I mean, stability was shocking.

We were struggling to get any form of players to come to the place.

And you sort of felt like this guy's going to help us rise above, And somehow give us a bit of purpose, a bit of excitement.

And through that, we saw the membership numbers change up around about the 58 or 60 mark, I think, from memory this year.

So for whatever's happened, and we knew that you could see there's probably some holes in our defence.

There was probably... a few different things that we questioned, but they went from three wings to another three wings to five wings to nine wings.

So there's obviously some growth in that.