BEN OFF THE BOIL

Tassie Roo in big form slide

WHAT’S wrong with Ben Brown? That may well be the question on the lips of North Melbourne fans as the towering Tasmanian struggles to take marks inside 50 and kick goals while he approaches the end of his contract with the Roos at the end of this season.

Brown, 27, almost won the Coleman Medal last year only to have it snatched away at the 11th hour by Giant Jeremy Cameron.

This year Brown has managed only seven goals in six games and North Melbourne’s fortunes reflect Big Ben’s battle as the Kangas lie in 16th on the AFL ladder with only two wins and 85.9 per cent.

In Saturday’s loss to Essendon, Brown took four marks, one inside-50 and kicked a solitary goal.

He also ran 13.3km — further than any other player in the match.

It caught the attention of Tasmanian AFL great Matthew Richardson, who kicked 800 goals for Richmond.

“Ben Brown’s only taken four marks in the past four weeks inside 50 and it shows you just how hard things are inside their forward line at the moment,” Richardson said.

North coach Rhyce Shaw said it is not all Brown’s fault.

“Our delivery in there isn’t great at the moment,” Shaw said. “We are playing in patches going inside 50.

“We won inside 50s again — 47 to 43 — so we are giving ourselves a chance.

“We’ve got to make the most of those chances but also go in cleaner as well and that will help our forwards.

“I was really pleased with the guys’ efforts and Brownie in particular competed and tried really hard, but we just didn’t get the result.

“We are doing a lot of work but we are just not getting the rewards. If we continue to do that we will get those rewards.”