SHANNON Grant was not the player the Kangaroos expected to be dropping this week. Daniel Harris? Corey Jones? Sure, but not Grant. His form has been adequate, but then his suspension was not about how he has been playing, it was what he was doing when he was not playing. Again.

Like Harris and Jones, club patience reaches a tipping point. Grant reached his when he was out drinking again.

Harris has been stretching the coach's patience every other week when he follows a good game with a shocker. Jones is close to his tipping point because the credits he earned over several years are nearly exhausted.

But, Harris, one of the players presumed most likely to be the fall guy for North's despicable effort on the Gold Coast, has a reprieve. He has told us so. He knew he was on the coach's black list after the miserable Carrara match (Dean Laidley seldom leaves players who disappoint him uncertain where they stand) and requested a chat with the coach about it. Presumably, he persuaded Laidley to give him a second chance because he has assured us he was told to pack his bags for Adelaide and not for trade week.

Harris has been a thorn in the side of the match committee for some time and irrespective of whether he plays this week, the question is how long the midfielder can remain in a yo-yo limbo.

Twice this year Laidley has singled him out post-match for a blistering attack, even raising the spectre of his future at the club. On both occasions Harris responded with impressive games — a poor game against the Lions begat a good one against Geelong. Another poor match against Freo preceded an outstanding game against the Bulldogs.

But that was all followed by the shocker against the Saints on the Gold Coast. It was not the sort of game where the quality of the opposition simply overwhelmed them, the Roos were complicit in their own demise.

Harris had three touches in the second half of that game including two clearances, one inside 50 and a goal. The goal, one of the clearances and the inside 50, however all came courtesy of Luke Ball's interchange foul-up which gifted North the free and goal.

It is foolish to think Harris cost North the game any more than it is to think Jones did. Jones also had a poor night, which has not made it a rarity this season, but he alone also didn't cruel the Roos. What did was an infection of inconsistency among senior players.

Jones has largely escaped external pressure because he has so long exceeded expectations, playing above his rating, he was after all the leading goal-kicker last year in Nathan Thompson's absence. But he has kicked just 21 goals in 12 games this year and seven of those came in one match.

It can be mischievous to remove a player's good games to prove poor form, but when there is only one good game it can also reveal true form.

Against St Kilda he had 13 touches, but only three were effective. This is the issue for North, that although Jones is not a key forward he attracts the ball like one, so the younger, less experienced players give him space as the go-to guy. But if the go-to guy isn't getting it and converting it, it has an effect that ripples all the way up the field.

The impact of Aaron Edwards' injury in disrupting the forward structure has been masked by the phenomenal year of Lindsay Thomas and Matt Campbell.

Whether Laidley follows through on his warning that recidivist disappointments would be held to account is yet to be seen, but it is notable that the threat came after he had just witnessed first-hand the effectiveness of the tough-love approach.

St Kilda had made examples of Nick Dal Santo and Stephen Milne the previous week not so much for poor performances but one-sided ones, for being lazy to one part of their game.

The club won both the match they missed and the one when they returned. Which was not to say they wouldn't have anyway but the reality is they won them.

It would seemingly be easier for North to follow through on a threat to get tough at selection — and Grant has already felt the wrath — because this week it faces Port Adelaide, a side for whom next year is a more compelling concern than this.

But these are academic concerns and not ones the players themselves would consider.

Grant delivered Laidley the certainty that he would be following through on his post-match threat, just not with the player he expected to. The question now is whether he will be the only one.