At the start of the year, the Kangaroos unveiled ‘Northball’ – a high-octane, fast-running, slick style of play that was set to make them entertaining to watch if not exactly a powerhouse anytime soon.

But as the losses continued to stack up and the passion of even the most ardent North Melbourne supporters was crushed under the weight of defeat after defeat, that style was shown up for the overly optimistic and ultimately unsustainable style it was always going to be. The Roos simply didn’t have the cattle anywhere on the field – up forward to capitalise on fast plays, the midfield to execute it, and the defence to hold firm when it backfired – to play this way.

No, the future for this North Melbourne team isn’t in shooting for the sun, falling short, and landing among the stars. It’s in the way every bad team, even the historically bad ones, has to start on the long road back up the ladder: in scrapping and fighting and clawing and scratching for every hard ball, in long hacked kicks that every so often catch the opposition defence unguarded. In desperate spoils to just prise the ball clear of marking forwards, in ferocious follow-up tackles to hold that footy in close.

In short, the Kangaroos’ future lies in ugly, unwatchable, gutsy, and ultimately inspirational wins like their one over West Coast on Saturday.

Nothing about this game was pretty – at times in the first half, watching a real time autopsy genuinely appealed as a less stomach-turning way to spend an afternoon. This was a horrendous display of sport from two teams at the very bottom, with the one that had made steps in climbing out of that hole in the earth having to cope without the emerging superstar that had made all that possible.

Sure, the Eagles were without Harley Reid, and Tim Kelly to boot – an ugly pair of outs for a reigning wooden spooner that had won just five games in two years heading into 2024. This was far from a good, or even decent, team that the Kangaroos beat.

But when you’re starting from the bottom, baby steps are the only ones you can take: and there was still something infinitely admirable about the way the Roos hunted the football, how they gutsed their way to a seemingly game-winning lead, watched in horror as it was nearly snatched away by a six-goal burst from an Eagles team that had managed two in three quarters previously, and then willed their way back in front just when all hope seemed lost.

At the centre of it all was North Melbourne’s utter, incredible domination at stoppages – and not even the absence of Reid and Kelly can fully account for the Roos’ 48-30 clearance win, which sat as high as 38-15 at three quarter time.

This was a textbook case of one team hunting the Sherrin as if their lives depended on it, the new holding the ball rule that punishes the player trying to win it be damned, and one that simply couldn’t or wouldn’t lay first hands on it at just about every turn.

The Roos have not been a clearance team this year: only Sydney average fewer stoppages in games this year, and they sit both third-last at winning clearances and third-best at conceding them. So this was quite a radical shift in style to both be so dominant at the coalface, and have that be so integral to the way they played.

Alastair Clarkson’s Roos midfield over the last month, since pretty much abandoning the old style and structure following a galling loss to a then-winless Hawthorn, has been a proper mismash of different players playing different roles – it spoke volumes of a coach tipping all the toys out of the box and throwing them around to see what he had to work with.

Harry Sheezel has spent bulk time on-ball having started the year at half-back; Jy Simpkin has at times been in the starting midfield group and at times wasting away at half-forward. Ditto Tom Powell, ditto Will Phillips; the only proper constants have been Tristan Xerri in the ruck and Luke Davies-Uniacke as the clearance-winning inside bull.

But for the first time against the Eagles, a proper midfield system was obvious to see. The starting centre bounce unit was, by and large, George Wardlaw, Davies-Uniacke and Simpkin, with cameos from Powell and Sheezel. The latter spent much of his time pushing up to contests as an extra on-baller but staying wide of the contest to make as much use of his brilliant foot skills as possible.

Most fascinatingly of all, Davies-Uniacke went from the Roos’ primary clearance winner, to a receiver, with Simpkin and Wardlaw the primary ball-hunters and the star No.9 remaining on the outer at stoppages, in a Zach Merrett-esque role at Essendon.

The results were remarkable – only once this season has Davies-Uniacke had fewer clearances than his 3, while just 10 contested possessions is his fourth-lowest figure. And yet he was easily best on ground, with his explosiveness away from congestion and strength in breaking tackles both key in ensuring the Roos maximised their first possession wins with proper clearance takeaways.

There is enough blue-collar grunt at the Roos to compensate for this new role: Xerri is the ultimate Shinboner, a heart and soul big fella who tackles ferociously, puts his head over the hard ball, and does inspirational things like his last-second chasedown of a runaway Liam Ryan, an effort as superb as any you’ll ever see from a ruckman.

He comprehensively had the better of his duel with Matt Flynn; while at his feet, the battering ram that is George Wardlaw is the sort of figure every bad team needs before they can become good. Like Xerri, his tackles hit as hard as any player in the game, and with 10 clearances, he more than anyone else on the ground was responsible in getting the Roos’ dominant clearance game going.

Then there was Simpkin. It has felt at times this year like North Melbourne’s captain was being inevitably squeezed out of the worst team in the competition. A spate of unlucky injuries haven’t helped, but he’s found it nigh on impossible to impact games playing the half-forward role with brief stints on-ball that have been asked of him.

If you asked Kangaroos fans the source of everything wrong with their club, a fair portion would have pointed to the woes of Simpkin and fellow skipper Luke McDonald and their inability to lead by example.

With greater responsibility on-ball, Simpkin had his best game in many a year, maybe ever. This was everything you’d want from a captain and then some: he tackled viciously, worked well from inside to outside as a sort of link man between Wardlaw at the bottom of the pack and Davies-Uniacke and Sheezel as the next links in the chain; and his transition work was second to none. No Roo had more than his seven inside 50s, while only half-backs Darcy Tucker and Zac Fisher, with far easier ball to deal with, exceeded his 491 metres gained.

That’s without even mentioning his final quarter, when, with his team tiring around him, first fought a one-man battle in midfield to stop the Eagles from running an even greater riot than their six-goal burst demanded, then provided the ultimate killer blow after a holding the ball decision on Elliot Yeo that was, let’s say, controversial.

The next step for the Roos is winning greater territory from their stoppage gains: despite a huge clearance advantage, they still lost the inside 50 count 43-58, and were trailing in the stat by one at three quarter time despite a +23 stoppage differential. Better teams than West Coast – so most of the rest of the competition – will punish them through sheer weight of numbers.

A newfound efficiency, though, will help matters, and that mostly comes down to two key figures ahead of the footy. Playing more forward, Sheezel’s smarts shine through with every disposal: virtually every touch is meaningful now, with Zac Fisher a more than capable ball-user taking the youngster’s old role as defensive distributor.

As much as his brilliant kicking is a weapon, his crafty handballs through congestion are just as noteworthy; the very best players handpass to where their target will be rather than where they are, and Sheezel does this as well as anyone. Four goal assists and a major of his own were a fitting reward.

At the end of all this stoppage domination was Nick Larkey, who does more with less than any other key forward in the game. His hands are sticky, his work rate immense and his set shot kicking sublime, but it’s his work when the ball hits the ground that adds another string to his bow, and is a crucial extra weapon given the quality of ball coming his way isn’t always, or even often, first rate.

As horrific as this West Coast turnover on the goal line is, a lot of spearheads wouldn’t have the dexterity nor the determination to follow up repeatedly to harass Harry Edwards into making his blunder, then snap over his head for the goal.

This is not a win that signals the dawning of North’s arrival: far from it. There are as many concerns as triumphs out of this match, most obviously how a match they’d dominated for three quarters was nearly undone by 15 minutes when they could scarcely lay hands on the ball.

But all those are concerns for another time. Right now, the very best thing for a young group building towards something, but not even out of constructing the foundation stones yet, is to learn how to win, as well as what winning really looks like.

Winning is messy. Winning is scrappy. It’s built on your ruckman running down the opposition’s speedster, on your captain locking up the opposition’s best midfielder and winning a lucky free. On Jackson Archer getting a fingertip to an Eagles soccer metres out and saving a goal that would have set up a grandstand finish.

It’s on Wardlaw’s heart and soul, Davies-Uniacke’s nimble feet bursting away from the pack, Sheezel’s subtle acts of undoubted intelligence. On Luke McDonald fighting tooth and nail to force a draw with Jack Darling despite giving up plenty of size and strength.

The Roos will, should they ever climb out of the doldrums, have better wins than this one. In time, maybe they’ll forget just how special this ugly, hideous, unsightly, gutsy, fierce, brilliant one was.