Your club needs you now.
You don't need me to tell you it's been a tough start to 2011. Zip and four never makes for good reading.
But there are extenuating circumstances. As disappointing as last Sunday's loss to Richmond was, taking on the reigning premier, Collingwood, and trekking to Perth twice in your first three games was never going to be easy.
Still, there's no escaping the fact this Saturday's game against Port Adelaide is one your Roo boys have to win.
It's also a game you, as a supporter, have to turn up to.
If you're still weighing up how you'll spend your arvo, consider this - in the four previous North-Port games at Etihad the crowds have averaged 15,294.
Surely you can do better than this. Especially when you know North has traditionally struggled to turn a profit at Etihad. Especially when you've seen the media highlights your club's past failures to draw decent home crowds against non-Victorian opponents.
More fundamentally, though, the Kangaroos deserve your support.
Let's face it, they've given you pretty good value over the years, even since the Wayne Carey era effectively ended after the club's seventh consecutive preliminary final appearance in 2000.
Reaching the finals in four of the 10 years since has hardly been disastrous. You got to enjoy 10 or more wins in all bar three of those seasons too, with the leanest year you've had to endure the seven-win 2006 season.
But when you consider some of the miserable years endured by Carlton, Essendon, Fremantle, Melbourne, West Coast and the Western Bulldogs during that period, that wasn't so bad, was it?
Best of all, though, your club is now aiming not just to survive but to thrive.
It is now ensconced in a state-of-art facility at Aegis Park, which your chairman James Brayshaw and chief executive Eugene Arocca have assured you will always be home.
Yes, North is pursuing lucrative 'home' games in Hobart, but Brayshaw reiterated at its annual general meeting in February that this will not be the precursor to a relocation to the Apple Isle.
Your coach Brad Scott is also hell bent on overseeing another successful on-field era.
For all his side's growing pains at the moment, you must be reassured to see Scott is not prepared to take any short cuts in this pursuit.
He knows the well-trodden path to the premiership is via youth at the NAB AFL Draft.
It can be a long and, at times, trying road, but consider the following comments Scott made after last week's loss:
"There's no point us eking out a few wins when we're still smoothing over the cracks a little bit. We've got some things that we've got to fix up and we've got to fix them quickly."
This is a coach competitive enough to be stung by losses, but patient enough to know his only option is to continue to educate and develop his young list.
Don't make the mistake of waiting for this development process to unfold. Scott and his side need, and deserve, your support now.
Besides, it will be far more satisfying knowing you were there when the building blocks of your next powerhouse side were being put in place, rather than jumping on board after the fortress has been assembled.
More immediately, though, don't make the mistake of pencilling in this Saturday's game as a 'gimme' win.
The embarrassment of last round's capitulation to AFL new boys, Gold Coast, will ensure the Power leave nothing out on the field.
You can help counter that. By ensuring the stands are filled with blue and white and roaring for your side.
It's sometimes known as a home-ground advantage.
The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs
