Did North retire Boomer too early? Former Roos captain weighs in

The moment where the heart was ripped out of North Melbourne can be traced back to one moment according to many Kangaroos fans.

After three straight years of playing finals in 2014, ’15 and ‘16, North decided not to offer contracts to 38-year-old Brent Harvey, 33-year-old Drew Petrie, 32-year-old Nick Dal Santo and 32-year-old Michael Firrito for 2017.

Then coach Brad Scott even admitted that all four could have played on in 2017, but the club instead decided to move towards youth.

The following season after the culling the Roos finished 15th. Since then, the Roos hold a 47-1-139 record across nine seasons of no September action.

Looking back at that call in late August of 2016, then captain Andrew Swallow says the playing group disagreed with the call, even though he can understand what the club was thinking.

He also believes that Petrie – who played the following season with West Coast, and Brent Harvey – who still holds the V/AFL games record of 432 matches, could have easily both played on as Shinboners.

“I don’t think we probably agreed with getting rid of all four,” Swallow said on This is Your Journey – thanks to Tobin Brothers.

“Some of the challenges we had through that period from 2010 to 2015 was that we didn’t hit the draft well in that period and didn’t have enough young talent coming through to sustain us.

“We knew we had to try and get some young players into the side, but probably getting rid of all four of them in hindsight and at the time was excessive.

“Probably at the time and to this day, Boomer could have still been running around. You see him in the changerooms and he still looks as fit as he did.

“I think he (Harvey) had some good footy left in him and even Drew Petrie who played at West Coast had some left in him.

“You could understand why the club thought it was the route they should take, but they probably should have staggered it a little more.”

Swallow talked about his North Melbourne career in its entirety and much more on this week’s episode.

Listen to Swallow’s chat with Sam Edmund below.