North Melbourne great David King has admitted he felt "flat" after his club's coach David Noble indicated that the Kangaroos could ask the AFL for a priority draft pick this year.
Noble's Kangaroos snapped an eight-match losing streak with a courageous seven-point win over Hawthorn, but not before suggestions that the club required AFL assistance.
Priority picks are typically handed out to struggling clubs chained to the bottom of the ladder for years on end. The Gold Coast Suns are the most recent team to be handed an extra pick at the top of the draft, where Matt Rowell and Noah Anderson were selected in 2019.
King, a two-time premiership winner with North, wanted no bar of his club asking the AFL for help, saying it went against the fabric of the Kangaroos.
"They're ten weeks into a rebuild," he told Fox Footy's First Crack.
"You've got to give clubs their decisions. If they want to take the club backwards to go forwards, then you can't help them.
"At the core of the Kangaroos football club, the fabric of the club doesn't ask for handouts. I'd be devastated if in the next two seasons they ask for a handout.
"They like the fact that everything is against the odds. They like the fact that they're the have-nots, that's the Shinboner spirit, to have success despite all of that. That's a part of who they are.
"I love David Noble and I love what he's doing, but I was a bit flat when he said it's an option. Don't ask for that. That's not who we are.
"We're here because we decided to go backwards to go forwards. Do it on your own."
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