NORTH Melbourne ultimately ran away with a comfortable win over Yartapuulti on Sunday afternoon, but things did not look so straight forward earlier in the match.

Yartapuulti (the Power) matched it with the Kangaroos early in the match, and as such, went into quarter time even with them on the scoreboard at 1.2.8 apiece.

Then, things started to fall apart in the second term for Yartapuulti. North Melbourne kicked three goals to none in the quarter to open the game up in its favour.

So, where did things go wrong for the Power? Rookie Me Central will take a look at the stats in search of an answer.

Clearances

The root of Yartapuulti’s problems started with the clearances, which then affected other areas.

In the first quarter, North Melbourne only led the clearance count by two, but in the second quarter it had four more than Yartapuulti did to lead the overall count by six at half time.

The Kangaroos also led the hit out count in both the first and second quarter, so its rucks were helping the midfielders get first hands on the ball. Those mids, who together are already one of the strongest units in the competition, were getting the ball and moving it forward.

Uncontested Possessions

That strength in the clearance battle also helped North establish dominance in the uncontested possessions.

In the first two quarters, North Melbourne had 49 and 38 uncontested possessions respectively, whereas Yartapuulti only had 18 and 17.

This is in stark contrast to the contested possession battle, which remained relatively even between the two teams between the first and second quarter. The differential between the two teams from the first quarter to the second only grew by three in North’s favour.  

Inside 50s

This dominance out of the middle from the Kangaroos helped the home side accelerate their inside 50 count in the second term, while Yartapuulti’s actually went backwards.

In the first quarter North recorded six inside 50s to Yartapuulti’s nine. In the second quarter, that tally was 16 to four in North’s favour.

Although Yartapuulti’s inside 50 efficiency rose significantly from first quarter to second and North Melbourne’s didn’t, such a low inside 50 count was always going to mean kicking much of a score was going to be a tough challenge.

Many areas stayed consistent

Despite the stark contrasts in these stats areas, many of the other differentials stayed pretty consistent. This included number of disposals, tackles and intercept possessions.