BEN Jacobs continues to enhance his reputation as one of the competition's stingiest taggers.
In North's 14-point win over Essendon at Etihad Stadium on Saturday, Jacobs kept David Zaharakis to just 12 touches, a remarkable 18 fewer than his season average across the previous seven rounds.
The midfielder didn't have a completely negative focus while manning Zaharakis either, winning 14 possessions himself and kicking a first-quarter goal.
It was an outstanding performance and continued the 24-year-old's strong start to the 2016 season.
Although North has occasionally released Jacobs from tagging roles at times during games this season, he has been instrumental in limiting the influence of players such as Daniel Rich (seven possessions), Nathan Jones (18) and Jack Steven (15).
Jacobs was at pains to acknowledge the help his teammates gave him in his role on Zaharakis when he spoke to AFL.com.au after Saturday's win.
"When you play sides lower on the table sometimes their good players are even more important to them, so every week's a challenge and it's a mental task more than anything," Jacobs said.
"I get great support from my other midfielders and teammates. I can trust in them that if things are going badly for me I know they're going to help me in the role.
"So today, as usual, my role was to try and get to him when I could, but if it happened that he moved around too much I just blend in with the team structure.
"It's always good to nullify someone, but it's about team defence. I think everyone will be happy with the job that we did on him because everyone's going to have a piece of time on him and the team were great working with me.
"So I'm happy with that."
Jacobs' goal against the Bombers was his first of 2016 and just the 10th of his 77-game career.
It was an impressive one too.
Receiving a quick handball in a crowded North half-forward line late in the first term, he clinically slotted a goal from 40m off one step.
Jacobs said although defending was his "priority" it was nice to hit the scoreboard occasionally.
"It's always nice to a kick a goal, it puts more pressure on my opponent," he said.
"I don't go chasing goals, but I guess I don't mind kicking them."
Jacobs was disappointed by North's second-half fadeout against the Bombers that saw its half-time lead of 50 points whittled down to just 14 at the final siren.
"We set ourselves up so nicely in the first half and we went away from the defensive structures that we're so good at," Jacobs said.
"I guess I'm kind of a bit blinded by it and would like to see the review on Monday and see what we did wrong, but it just looked like we went away from our structures and I guess they'll get shown up on Monday.
"We did get a bit of a kick up the arse in the second half especially. We look at it as a win but a lot of learning points came out of it."
