You have to respect the hustle! Time to Restump Podcast the Saturday night clash against the well-rested, tin rattling, garage sale conducting, home game selling Kangas. 

North Melbourne have been staying in WA for the entire week, showcasing Bunbury to Rottnest. We know they're a bit light in the pockets, but are they on the WA tourist bureau books? 

Whatever the case, they're going to be well rested and while they played a game last week down in Bunbury, it's fair to say both Freo and the Kangas are coming off byes. 

We're going in with an unchanged line-up and, in our most recent batch of form, it suggests complications and products of the bye should be our greatest hurdle. We're only tongue in cheek disrespecting the Kangas with our nonsense, but having watched their performance last week against the Eagles... we really shouldn't be losing this game. 

While an unchanged line-up produces continuity and stability, it means on this occasion we're going around again without the captain and without our best option for Nick Larkey. The Kangas forward isn't in hot form but he can turn it on. Paul Curtis on the other hand has had a career best year to date and is one that we'll need to do a little more than keep an eye on.

Tristian Xerri is up there with, if not the best, rucks in the league and in the absence of a second ruck, he’ll be up against team JackArce. It will be interesting to see if there is any improvement not only in Sean Darcy’s game and condition, but more so his game time minutes.    

Five weeks ago we’d just put in that insipid performance against St Kilda. We were all emotionally distraught, the sack the coach crowd were at fever pitch, our season was thought to be over and we were individually questioning all the decisions we’d made in our lives up until that point.

Fast forward to round 14 and we’ve run the premiership favourites to a couple of goals, beaten GWS, Port Adelaide, Gold Coast, sit in 9th with 7 wins staring at five winnable upcoming games with four of them at home to be eyeing off top four once again, and not a murmur from the “to hell with JL” gang!

We’ve won 50% of our post-bye games across our history. However, we’ve won 62.5% of our post-bye home games. As this is a post-bye away game at home, there isn’t exactly a sufficient sample size of indicative statistics for that! 

While nothing is certain in life, victory over the Kangas on Saturday night should really be a formality. Yes, go ahead throw your accusations of “jinxing us” and “tempting the footy Gods” at me. The truth is, if we can’t beat superstition, we may as well sell our home games because we wouldn’t be a serious club!

It feels a case of little to win and much to lose with little hope of losing it. Conventionality will get the job done but procedural tendencies are uninspiring. Do we need some sort of Griffin Logue centred shenanigans to raise the vibration and spark enthusiasm? 

Can we raise the spirits and lift the mental intensity on the pod as we discuss Saturday night’s clash against the Skippies? It’s a tall order! We offer no guarantees or returns, but we’ll give it a go.

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