In the AFL’s indigenous round, there would be no better place for North Melbourne to win than the wild West.
Western Australia is home to Barry Cable and Jim and Phil Krakouer, who blazed a trail for indigenous footballers at Arden Street in the 1970s and 1980s.
And on Sunday night the Kangaroos get that chance against West Coast.
“It’s really important to Lindsay Thomas and Daniel Wells, therefore it’s really important to us,” coach Brad Scott said.
“They’re the current indigenous custodians of our club but we’ve got a great indigenous heritage dating back to the Krakouer brothers and before that.”
Key to earning a win to keep them inside the top eight will be starting well.
The Kangaroos have won just three of their nine first terms this season and last Friday night against Geelong they were slow out of the blocks again.
Unable to reel in a 21-point quarter-time deficit, Scott was filthy at their first-term effort, calling it appalling.
He had recovered by Thursday to consider the positives.
“I suspect if we played that game against Geelong three years ago and started the way we did, we would have completely capitulated and lost by 12 plus goals,” he said.
But still, there are concerns for his side, who will slip out of the top eight without a win.
“It’s the opposite of what we did last year when we had trouble finishing off games,” he said.
“We were a great starting side and a poor finishing side, wow we’re a poor starting and a good finishing side.
“Fortunately the middle part of our game is going OK, we’ve just got to fix the rest of it.”
Scott said the lapse wasn’t psychological, but rather “just footy”.
“It’s nothing to do with the mindset going in,” he said.
“(We were) beaten in contested possession early in games … we didn’t take our chances going forward.”
The Kangaroos are winless in five matches against West Coast, meaning their trip to Patersons Stadium gives them a chance to scrub another hoodoo after erasing two already this season.
The Kangaroos won in the West for the first time since 2010 and also erased a seven-year losing run against Sydney in round four.