It's about this time of year that footy fans look back on the season and think of what might have been.

They think of the could'ves, should'ves, might'ves and if onlys. And, totting up all the games their side should have won, these fans realise their team would surely be sitting in the top four now if only fate's fickle finger had not zapped all those lightning bolts at them.

These kind of ruminations are especially likely to take place when your team is sitting in ninth place after 20 games, and a game-and-a-half out of the eight.

So forgive the self-indulgence of a cranky Kangaroo who still looks back at the Round 10 match against Sydney at Etihad Stadium and grimaces, and grinds his teeth. Usually at the same time.

He guessed at the time that particular one-point defeat might have serious repercussions at the pointy end of the year. And looking at the ladder after 22 rounds, he can see now just how serious they are.

But I digress. Back to the story.

The Roos that day got off to a flier; they were all over the Swans.

Aaron Edwards scored a point and he was followed soon afterwards by Drew Petrie who also miscued. But they were just warming up, it transpired. In the next five minutes, Petrie goalled twice and Edwards once. And when Andrew Swallow kicked another point after nine minutes, the scoreboard read: North Melbourne 3.3 (21) to Sydney 0.0 (0).

That was the cue for Sydney to apply their trademark clamp to the game, shutting it down so completely that the ball was only occasionally visible among a slow-moving pack of 20 or more players. For the next 10 minutes, neither side scored.

And then out of the congestion the ball was hurriedly kicked down to little Lindsay Thomas, unmarked on the point of the square, and the North forward pocket took the mark. He was maybe 12 metres out.

Of course, Thomas - in the middle of his horror patch of goalkicking that had him handling the ball as though it was some dangerous, mysterious object with a mind of its own, like a Snitch in Quidditch - missed the set shot.

Emboldened by the let off, Sydney kicked the next five goals - more power to them - and it was game on.

The point of the story is this: as goal was traded for goal, tackle for tackle, and forward thrust for forward thrust, we entered the final seven or eight minutes of the game with the scores level. Or as close to level as doesn't matter.

The ball was roosted down to the Roos' forward line and Petrie took what appeared to be a legitimate mark - despite the attentions of Heath Grundy who was doing his best Stephen Silvagni impersonation and had at least two tentacles wrapped about the North man's midriff. But in taking the ball in a slightly contorted position, because Grundy by his stage had him in a half-Nelson, Petrie somehow completed the mark with his right arm around Grundy's shoulders while still holding the ball in his hands.

Umpire Justin Schmitt blew his whistle and paid a free against Petrie for the high contact - even though there was only one bloke going for the ball, and one bloke doing his Henry the Octopus routine. It was about the most illogical decision I can recall this year.

Still fuming about that, I - along with the rest of the North supporters (all 107 of us) - watched the ball get ferried down the other end in the next minute and Swans' nuggety onballer Ben McGlynn be paid a free for an apparent chop of his arms by Brady Rawlings. This was more of a lineball decision, I'd concede, but it was one of those days when we just came to expect the worst from lineball decisions. McGlynn duly slotted a tricky shot, the siren sounded a minute or so later and, hey presto, a five-point lead had been magically turned into a one-defeat. Just like that.

So forgive the bleat, the whinge, the whine and the rant. But this is the time of year for reflection. And recriminations. Especially for fans of teams sitting in ninth place.

But glad we've got that cleared up: North should be in the eight now, Sydney ninth, and all those tiresome permutations and calculations about who needs to do what to make the finals over the next fortnight rendered completely redundant.