NORTH Melbourne's Kayne Turner takes it personally seeing his Roos ranked among the AFL's worst teams for forward-half pressure.
As an experienced member of North's mosquito fleet in attack, Turner's chief priority is to turn up the heat on opposition defenders who dare to try and rebound the Sherrin.
The 23-year-old is not a prolific goalkicker – he's split the middle only 14 times in his past 32 games – but his seven-tackle effort against Adelaide a fortnight ago was a reminder of what he can do.
That performance coincided with the Kangaroos' sole win in 2019, including Turner's memorable chase-down of 201cm Crow Reilly O'Brien.
"Our forward-50 pressure was a focus for us, because we'd probably been lacking in that area," Turner told AFL.com.au of the Adelaide victory.
"The stats showed we were down near the bottom in that area, so we sort of had it put on us as the forwards.
"We've seen we had a poor start to the year … (and) out on the field, we might discuss how we're feeling and 'Let's try and step it up now', but we sort of don't want to speak about it.
"It's better if we don't have to speak about it and it's just happening."
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Turner, top-10 draftee Tarryn Thomas and Cameron Zurhaar played in the same side for the first time that night and combined for 15 tackles.
Thomas was rested on Good Friday, when North Melbourne suffered its fourth defeat of the season to Essendon, but the 19-year-old is back for Friday night's clash with Port Adelaide.
More of the same from that trio, among the entire forward line, would go a long way to the Roos logging a badly-needed second win.
Thomas, in particular, has caught Turner's eye.
Ben Cunnington hugs Tarryn Thomas after the youngster slotted a goal in round two. Picture: AFL Photos
"Tarryn's got everything, really. Over the years I think we'll see him develop into a really good player, but at the moment he's still finding his way a bit," Turner said.
"But what he's been able to do in his first three games is pretty unreal for a first-year player."
As for Turner's own performance, it's rarely about the standard numbers, but he's quietly placed equal-seventh in the competition for score assists this year.
"You're not always going to get all the possessions or all the goals," he said.
"But if you come off the field feeling like, 'Yep, I've done everything right and I put all the effort I could into it', then I think you'll feel pretty good.
"The coaches never put pressure on numbers, especially Brad (Scott) – he's not a numbers sort of coach – so that's massive for us."
North Melbourne's current ladder predicament is in contrast to the start of Turner's career, given his 19th match back in 2015 doubled as his second preliminary final.
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"Success in finals is obviously what we play for, and I was lucky enough to play in those finals when we were going really well and we had a nice, older, mature list," he said.
"Even when we were struggling a bit a few years ago, we had guys like Luke Davies-Uniacke come in and we're seeing him really shine, so it's the other end of the scale now.
"It's disappointing we're not playing finals, but it's great to see young guys come in and start to have a real impact on AFL games … you get as much reward out of that as well."
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