North Melbourne v St Kilda: Victory icing on Harvey's cake

Prior to Saturday evening, Brent Harvey had played in nine milestone games, eight graduations of 50 plus the night he broke Glenn Archer's North Melbourne games record five years ago. North Melbourne had won every one of them.

That was a pretty good omen for the biggest of the lot, his 427th AFL game against St Kilda, one which would see him overtake Michael Tuck's record of 26 years standing.

And in a career typified by metronomic consistency of performance, both he and history saluted again, North after a dour struggle ending St Kilda's impressive late run at a finals spot with a 23-point win.

The Roos always held the edge on the scoreboard, never quite enough to feel truly comfortable until the final term. But that at least gave them, and their champion small man, a little time to party, like when Lindsay Thomas, marking only 15metres out, dead in front, managed to dish off a handball to his feted teammate, Harvey, to thunderous cheers, booting the 512th goal of his 21-season career.

In truth, there wasn't a lot more worth remembering about this game other than the fact that history on an individual level was created. The mistakes were plenty, highlights few and far between. But most importantly for the victors, North Melbourne's third consecutive finals campaign all but confirmed.

The opening salvos certainly didn't take long, Trent Dumont giving North their opening goal in under a minute, Blake Acres' response for St Kilda coming in just over two. But that hardly set the tone, just one more goal kicked for the entire quarter, players of both sides fluffing more than their share of opportunities, perversely the most difficult of the lot Jarrad Waite's long goal on the run for the Roos from near the boundary line.

What wasn't reflected on the scoreboard, though, was the Roos' superiority in the harder aspects, North ahead 10-2 on the clearance count at the first change, and leading the tackle tally 19-7.

You thought, once Ben Brown put the Roos a couple of goals up, that the edge might be converted into something more meaningful.

But that would have involved the hitting of targets, and for a while in the second term, it seemed neither team could hit the side of a barn, leads not honoured, overshot, long high haphazard delivering to each respective forward 50 the order of the day. The misses started mounting up, Josh Bruce off-target for the Saints, Jed Anderson running into an open goal and putting it well wide for North. Skipper Andrew Swallow missed, and, given a second chance, kicked into the man on the mark.

Precocious St Kilda youngster Jade Gresham made two sidesteps look easy, then, having done the hard work, also couldn't finish off.

The upshot of one of the uglier halves of football seen this season was 4.7 to the Roos and 2.7 to the Saints, and an overwhelming sense of anti-climax given not only the size of the occasion in historical terms, but what was at stake in a more immediate sense.

Harvey did his bit, among the Roos' leading possession-winners. But the most spectacular moment was provided by his veteran but still by five years younger teammate Drew Petrie, who took an absolute hanger close to goal, his knee resting on key position colleague Ben Brown's shoulder, which says enough about how far from ground level was the big man.

That pushed the margin into the 20s, and it was almost five goals by the time Brown himself added the next, Leigh Montagna at least keeping the Saints in the contest with a quick reply, his side's first goal for one-and-a-half quarters.

But any lingering hopes were extinguished within  18 seconds of the start of the final term, and again it was the old warhorse Petrie providing the spark, picking up cleanly, executing a lovely little sidestep, then snapping over his shoulder.

Finally, the Roos could relax,  Thomas and Brown cashing in for their efforts, the latter a dangerous target all night, Petrie continuing his revival begun last week against Collingwood, and Jamie Macmillan playing one of his best games for the Roos out of defence.

St Kilda had time to salvage some respectability, too, booting four of the last five goals of the game after having managed just four for the entire previous three-and-a-half quarters. But that was all incidental, really. With the win long wrapped up, what time remained was all about the recognition of a bloke who has for some time already rated 10 out of 10 for endurance. And is now also 10 from 10 in milestone games.

VOTES
North Melbourne v St Kilda
(Rohan Connolly)

Jamie Macmillan (NM) ........8
Drew Petrie (NM) ................7
Ben Cunnington (NM) .........6
Sam Gibson (NM)................6
Ben Brown (NM)..................6