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Clarkson accused of gaslighting North Melbourne fans
Luke Mathews • August 5th, 2025 6:30 pm
SEN’s Kane Cornes and award-winning journalist Caroline Wilson have launched a scathing attack on North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson, saying supporters should be fed up with the club’s messaging.
Since the landmark signing of Clarkson at the end of 2022, the Kangaroos finished 17th in both 2023 and 2024 and look set for yet another bottom three finish in 2025.
Despite plenty of Roos stars committing long term, the side has failed to attract high quality talent and are a without a first-round draft pick for 2025.
The discussion on Clarkson’s progress came to a head last week when the Roos were handed a 101-point drubbing by Geelong.
Cornes and Wilson felt that the club needs to be more honest with where the team is at and to start looking forward, halting the continuous references of the good old days at Hawthorn where he won four premierships.
“The amount of times he references Hawthorn,” Cornes told Channel 7's The Agenda Setters on Monday night.
“I just don’t think the North Melbourne fans care about Hawthorn from 10 years ago.
“I think Clarko has got to move on and start talking about the future of North and issues at North without continually referencing the old days at Hawthorn.
“I am actually certain North Melbourne fans would be fed up with.
“What relevance does Luke Breust being a rookie back in 2009 have to the future of the North Melbourne footy club?
“I’d just be advising him to move the discussion forward and not backwards.”
After the narrow nine-point loss to St Kilda on the weekend, Clarkson said: "We're making progress but we'd like the progress to be more in terms of wins but we're not quite there at the moment.
"But the mood and morale is good within the four walls of the footy club, but it just becomes the hysteria of expectation outside."
He followed it up by saying mentioning that there were a lot of people who thought that they could do a better job of coaching the team that have never even tried it.
But Wilson was quite critical of those comments.
“If I was a supporter, I would feel gaslighted by that comment, 'the hysteria of expectation',” Wilson said on Monday night.
“Why would you not be feeling pretty hysterical about your damned expectations, three years into this wonderful coaching situation.
“How many failed coaches, how many disappointing years, to say that it’s hysterical, to be pretty disappointed with the way the club is going.
“I know they put on a good performance on the weekend but last weekend was unacceptable and Alastair must know that, so I didn’t like that.”
North Melbourne will be hoping to prove the doubters wrong when they square off with GWS in Canberra on Sunday.
