NORTH Melbourne forward Matt Campbell has only been at the club for a 17 months but he has a clear understanding of what makes the Kangaroos such a formidable adversary for any other League team.
“If you just keep working hard things are going to bob up. You may be having a bad day but if you keep working hard, something could bob up and that could change the game.”
It was that persistence which enabled North to zoom past Collingwood in the dying stages despite being 21 points down 13 minutes into the final term.
“I just thought if we got another two here, two in a row, you never know what might happen, we would be in it. But we got three or four in a row and a bit of luck came to us.”
Campbell ended up kicking the final goal that sealed a seven-point victory.
Coach Dean Laidley opted for a small forward structure around Nathan Thompson in the final stages of the game and it paid a rich dividend through the productivity of Campbell, Lindsay Thomas and Shannon Grant.
“In our last couple of weeks there has been a big focus on forward pressure and obviously me, and Lindsay (Thomas ) and Shannon Grant have been laying tackles so I suppose he just thought the small guys would get us over the line and in the end we did. Lindsay kicked two , I kicked one , and Ed Lower bobbed up with two.”
For Lower it was a sweet end to a game which had looked like being a disaster when his opponent Paul Medhurst blew the game apart in the second term when he kicked two quick goals and narrowly missed another.
Campbell praised Lower’s resilience.
“When you are having a bad first half you can come back. He got thrown forward and it was a new role for him and I reckon he did well.”
Campbell’s fellow indigenous forward Thomas had a last quarter that included the full range of emotions that included a couple of good goals , frustrating shots that hit the post and one miss that he would have piloted through 99 times out of 100.
But again it was a triumph for keeping his head up and persisting in the belief that eventually the breaks would come.
“Even the coaches and the runner and the boys around Linds just kept saying ‘Keep turning up, it’s going to come. An opportunity is going to come again.’ He took a mark and you could see he wanted to pass it but deep down he knew he was going to get one. After, he kicked that his confidence lifted.”
The luck turned Thomas’ way when he threaded a shot through a thicket of players and it found its way over the line.
“I was inside of him. I wasn’t calling for a handball but once he kicked it, with the luck he was having, I sort of sprinted to the goalsquare and tried to get a toe poke on it but it turned back in and went through.”
There is a strong bond between the five indigenous players on the North list.
“Me and Lindsay spend a bit of time together off the field. All the boys are pretty good - Wellsy gets in with us and Eddie Sansbury and Cruze Garlett . We all look after each other.”
