Grounds for optimism at North Melbourne as emerging talents give glimpse of rosy future | Jonathan Horn
For most of his tenure at North Melbourne, Alastair Clarkson’s eyebrows have been arched in a kind of perma-frown,The bigger the deficit, the steeper the arch,It’s not as though his team has been completely hopeless,Most of the time, they’ve tried their guts out,They’ve just been incredibly frustrating.
They’d won 11 games in three years heading into the weekend’s clash against Port Adelaide.They were 11-1-57 since Clarkson took over.In press conferences, he preaches patience, the long haul, the future.But it’s the eyebrows that keep the score – two hairy registers of shanks, turnovers and towellings.There was a three-minute patch at the end of the first half of Sunday’s 17.
11 (113) to 9.13 (67) win where the eyebrows flatlined and the Roos finally looked like a serious footy team.It netted three goals and was a snapshot of where and why there is ground for optimism – the blunt instrument of Tristan Xerri, the propulsion of Luke Davies-Uniacke, the quick and clean hands of Harry Sheezel, and the continual improvement of their crop of young, high draftees.The onslaught continued after the main break, with three more goals in 10 minutes, at which point the result was forgone.It was by no means the marquee game of a rather dubiously cherrypicked round of “rivalry” matches.
But it was crucial that North showed something.Earlier in the week the club president, Dr Sonja Hood, wrote a letter to North Melbourne members.It may as well have been addressed to Clarkson.“The message to the entire playing group this year is simple,” Hood wrote.“The ‘potential’ phase is over.
We aren’t looking for brief flashes any more.We are looking for a standard that honours the emotional and financial investment that our members and supporters make every single year.”Any of those members heading to the game via tram or train could have read extensive interviews with the North coach in both the Herald Sun and the Age.We learned that Clarkson has taken up beekeeping.We learned that in the week the Hawthorn racism scandal broke, then AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan said to him, “Just talk to Dills [Andrew Dillon, AFL general counsel at the time] and all this will be resolved” – a neat encapsulation of how the AFL do business.
And he told journalist Jake Niall: “If they think someone else can be out there, [and] they’re going to do it quicker, I’m all for it.”The streetfighter who yields to no one was noticeably absent in both interviews.He sounded like a man who had mellowed, a man at peace with his bees and the realities of building a list from scratch.But Sunday was the first proper glimpse of the team he has been assuring us is ready to emerge.They’ve always had talent and spirit but at Marvel Stadium they demonstrated that they may finally be a team with a coherent system, a team that can defend, a team that can live up to what the president demands in letter form.
The next five games are against West Coast, Essendon, Carlton, Brisbane and Richmond,They’d consider themselves a chance in at least four of those, and the way Brisbane’s going they’d be half a chance in that one as well,The best football of round one came on Saturday, when seven of the leading nine teams of 2025 were scheduled to play and when, by the usual stroke of genius, there was no footy on free-to-air television,In particular, Sydney’s opening quarter was the equal of their third term the previous week, and superior to any other quarter from any other side so far this year,In method and in application, their game against Brisbane at the Gabba in August last year was instructive.
Errol Gulden notched up his usual 30 or so touches that day, most of them perfectly weighted and incisive.He was the key to their vast improvement in the final third of the 2025 season.They operated at a totally different tempo to how they’d played up until that point under Dean Cox, and for much of the John Longmire era.It was bolder and more ballistic, and it was all on display at the SCG again on Saturday night.But they’d trade that win for a fit and available Gulden, whose shoulder was yanked out of its socket.
He was coming off the best pre-season of his life, was in slashing form in all the scratch matches, completely obliterated Carlton to kick off the season and backed it up against the reigning premiers on Saturday.Gulden is training to be a pilot.He has the spatial awareness, the even temperament and the precision I want in my airmen.“You just can’t think about footy when you’re up in a plane – otherwise you’d be in a bit of strife,” he told AFL.com’s Cal Twomey.
But he might be in a bit of strife now.And presumably he won’t be practising take-offs or lacing out full forwards for a while.
Stout clobber? Guinness tie-up features £1,295 ‘pub carpet’ jumper
Brand enlists JW Anderson to help brew up 17-piece range of luxury fashionwear, from ‘beer towel’ shorts to branded trousers and topsYou too can look like a pub carpet – and for the bargain price of £1,295. Such sartorial elegance – perhaps an option for anyone stepping out to celebrate St Patrick’s Day this week – is the aesthetic love-child of a partnership between Guinness and the luxury clothing brand JW Anderson.The tie-up, launched earlier this month, allows fashionistas to get their hands on a range of Guinness wear that exploits the continuing metamorphosis of the “black stuff” from unfashionable pub staple to social media status symbol.The 17-piece range features everything from elasticated shorts that look like a beer towel (£440) to an £850 Irish wool jumper, featuring the Guinness harp logo set against a cloudy cream that nods subtly to the head on a well-poured pint.The range is fronted by the actor Joe Alwyn and the rapper Little Simz, and “pulls from vintage brewery uniforms, Irish pub interiors and archival graphics, translating them into denim workwear, twisted jeans, towelling sets and knitwear”
Relief for some of Britain’s poorest lands at right moment to cushion Iran aftershocks | Heather Stewart
It doesn’t involve warships, drones or strategic oil stocks, but one of Labour’s most potent weapons for containing the economic aftershocks from the Iran war for the UK is about to be unleashed: the scrapping of the two-child limit.If the cost of essential goods spikes as a result of high oil prices it is the poorest households who will be the most exposed.The timing is purely fortuitous, but ministers are about to write to parents in more than half a million such homes to let them know they are likely to receive an average of £440 extra a month from April. These are families with three or more children, claiming universal credit.“It’s massive,” says Alex Clegg, an economist at the Resolution Foundation thinktank
One of Britain’s last major chemical plants at risk as energy prices surge
The American owner of one of Britain’s last major chemicals plants has said he will close the site if energy prices remain at their current levels for the next three months.Peter Huntsman, whose family built Huntsman Corporation into a global chemicals empire, said the recent jump in gas prices fuelled by the Iran conflict was “another nail in the coffin” for European heavy industry.“If today’s economics were to stay in place for the next three months, I would shut down my [UK] facility and I’d be importing product from China or the United States,” he said.The factory in Wilton, on Teesside, employs about 80 people and makes aniline, a chemical used in everything from car seats to aircraft components. It is one of the last surviving plants of the former Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), Britain’s largest manufacturer for much of the 20th century
‘The chef is a metre away from you’: the cosy allure of micro-restaurants
It started with the portion sizes, as all-you-can-eat buffets were reduced to bite-size small plates. Then the menus started to decrease, with pages of dishes shrinking to an A5 sheet of paper.Now restaurants are undergoing another round of downsizing. Micro-restaurants, which usually seat fewer than 20 people, are gradually spreading across the UK.The focal point is the communal table
Rate rises, helium shortages, EV sales spikes: how is the disruption in Iran’s strait of Hormuz affecting Australia?
The Middle East conflict is causing huge disruptions to energy supplies, with knock-on effects reaching far beyond petrol prices.While the initial US-Israeli strikes on Iran drew a muted response from global markets due to expectations it would be a short conflict, there are now questions over whether the US has a clean exit strategy that would guarantee a stable resumption of trade through the crucial strait of Hormuz.Here are five ways the “largest supply disruption in history” in global oil markets is affecting Australia, from the cost of crucial imported goods to the purchasing decisions made by consumers.There was already a strong shift to electrified vehicles before the war on Iran disrupted energy markets, with new battery vehicles selling at nearly double the rate from a year ago, according to February automotive data.James Voortman, chief executive of the Australian Automotive Dealer Association, says car yards have been selling even more EVs since petrol prices started to rise
‘Everything is going up’: Americans struggle with affordability despite Trump’s claims
US workers are still struggling with the cost of living despite Donald Trump’s campaign promises to fix the US affordability crisis.The Guardian spoke to workers as an exclusive poll showed cross-party concerns about the Trump administration’s handling of the US economy.Dawn Levie, 61, a postal service worker in Paulden, Arizona, said she’s lost thousands in earnings over the past year due to cuts to her hours, making it more difficult for her to afford basic necessities like paying for groceries and utility bills.“It’s hard to describe how you feel when you can’t sustain your livelihood because your money is impacted,” Levie said. “You can’t pay bills, [and] creditors get mad
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