North Melbourne's sacking of Alastair Clarkson "wasn't on the cards" as recently as two weeks ago, according to high-performance weapon Andrew Russell.
Russell had recently been negotiating with the Kangaroos a consultancy role at Arden Street, and understood there was no movement on parting ways with Clarkson.
Russell and Clarkson have an existing working relationship from their time at Hawthorn, with the former helping the Hawks during their four premierships between 2008 and 2015.
“I was going to go to North in a consulting role. I'd been speaking to Todd (Viney) and to Clarko for months,” Russell said on SEN.
“So as recently as two weeks ago, this wasn't on the cards from North Melbourne's perspective. I had done a deal to go there as a consultant, not full-time, and not in the performance role. Kev White does an amazing job at North Melbourne, and they're very happy with that role.
“So it was actually a performance role across the whole football department and working with the players, which was exciting. So as I said, as of two weeks ago, this came very late.”
The Kangaroos had improved under Clarkson, going from back-to-back three-win seasons, before claiming five victories and then nine this year.
Russell attempted to provide more context around the shock sacking decision, given Clarkson still had one year left on his contract.
“It's really interesting from a governance point of view. Clarko comes in as the messiah. He comes in with the ‘you're going to save us' (mentality), which is huge in sport when the big messiah comes in,” Russell said.
“My understanding is he doesn't get any formal feedback during the time from the CEO, from the board, from Sonja. I think Sonja was catching up with players and talking to players.
“Then I think at the end of the year they did a feedback mechanism, which sounds like it came together pretty quickly. The feedback was a focus group session with players. When you get players together, sometimes the players are the last people you want to ask around a coach. I've seen players be ruthless on a coach and coaches when that team is winning, let alone when you're losing.
“It's a knife's edge, the relationship with a coach. So when you get a group of players together, the strongest voice will give their piece; groupthink takes over. I've seen it forever and a day, groupthink in these groups of players, either in a positive or a negative direction.
“I think a few players had a strong perspective, and that perspective was then fed back at some level. There must have been a few other things going on. Then all of a sudden, normal conversations, normal challenges that happen in a football department, all of a sudden something happened and that must have gone to the board, and then decisions change from there.”
Russell all but rejected the notion that Clarkson wasn't up-to-date with the modern landscape of AFL football, which was insinuated by Hood in last week's press conference.
“Clarko is a smart guy. This concept of ‘the modern game '- what is the modern game? I don't understand what people are talking about when you talk about the modern game,” he added.
"He's wired a certain way. He's curious, he's a lateral thinker, he's a risk taker, he's courageous, but what he needs also is he needs people around him to balance that. He is what he is; he comes in, he was exactly the same version that they got four or five years ago when he came in. He's the same version now."
