AFL: North Melbourne caretaker coach Leigh Adams wants players to express themselves

Leigh Adams won’t be overwhelming his North Melbourne players with “too many instructions” in his first game as caretaker coach, with the shackles released for them to express themselves and find some enjoyment against Richmond on Saturday.

David Noble’s departure after just 38 games in charge this week has thrust Adams, the club’s VFL and development coach, into the main chair in an emotional week that he said would impact everyone differently.

But he also said “footy doesn’t stop for anyone” and he put his focus on adjusting to the requirements of getting a playing group that has won just one of 16 games in 2022 ready to front up to the Tigers.

Adams said Noble had implored him to “do things my way” in a chat this week, and while he hasn’t completely thrown out the playbook, he’s asking the players to play “exciting football”, especially when it comes to attack, with North’s average of less than 10 goals a game this season the worst in the AFL.

“We’re going to try to free the guys up a little bit more on offence and let them play what they see in front of them,” Adams said on Friday.

“We’re not going to have too many instructions in that part of the game.

“We want to score, we want to score as fast as we can and as much as we can and not let defences get set behind the footy.

“It might mean at times that we make a few mistakes, but we’re just going to encourage the boys to keep going after it, make mistakes and try to clean them up afterwards.”

After a week in the VFL, No.1 draft pick Jason Horne-Francis has been recalled for the match at Marvel Stadium and Adams has looked to lighten the mood at the club, which also won just four games in 2021.

“It‘s going to be about the environment that we can provide,” Adams said.

“We want it to be really enjoyable, we want our guys to play to their potential and their talent and really show that we can play like as a footy club.

“If that means we can win a couple of games that would be great, and we‘re going into every game thinking that we can win.

“But we just want the guys to be able to express themselves on the field and play some really exciting football.”

Adams, who played 104 games for North Melbourne before his premature retirement in 2015 because of concussion issues, said he was going to lead from the front when it came to enjoying the rest of the season, unwilling to put his name in the frame to be Noble’s successor.

At least not yet.

“You can see the pressure that comes with this job and I haven’t made any decisions on whether it’s something I want to do,” Adams said.

“Forty-eight hours ago I was a development coach, coaching VFL footy, so I haven‘t put too much thought into it.

“Hopefully, the next six weeks goes well and it might be something that I want to pursue, but at his stage I‘m in a really great position just to sit back and enjoy it.”