League best and fairest winner. Eight-time All-Australian. Three-time premiership player. North Melbourne's inaugural AFLW captain.

This weekend, one of the pioneers of the women's game, Emma Kearney, plays her 100th match against Sydney at Arden Street Oval, in the competition she helped build the foundations of.

On the eve of her milestone, Kearney shared a handful of moments that have shaped her career.

Obviously footy is a popular sport in Australia and I grew up in country Victoria, so it was a very popular sport there. It's for all shapes and sizes and it's the physical nature of the sport but then the skills involved in it, that's what I loved about it.

I get my white-line fever from my mother. She was a very good athlete growing up, and so I've probably inherited her sporting genes. Although Dad is probably spewing that I don't mention him.

Even when I was playing junior basketball, I'd get myself into a bit of trouble with the refs at times. But it just comes from a place of passion and wanting to win.

I remember I was on the bike in the gym, and ‘Crock’ (senior coach Darren Crocker) approached me with a bit of an off-the-cuff sort of comment saying that I'd spend a few minutes in the backline each game, and I thought, “Yeah, OK, no worries”.

And then I trained in pre-season. I was terrible. I was all over the place. And I thought, “What are you doing, Crock?”

Part of me was a bit like, “Oh, jeez, I'm not sure about this, I’m so used to being around the footy”.

I was a midfielder that didn't defend overly well either … and I'm probably a defender that doesn't defend that well either … I know I'm joking there.

It's been so good physically for my body, you get banged up in the midfield.

And then in terms of my leadership, growth and knowledge of the game, it's been great to be able to play up at half-back and learn a different role but also be able to lead better.  When you're sitting behind the ball, you can see what's happening ahead of you.

I was just trying to navigate the stresses of that and then two weeks into the rehab, I sustained another hamstring injury.

Each rehab session, there's so much doubt going through your mind, and I'd had a lot of calf issues before the pre-season, so I was conscious of my calves not going on me during the rehab.

The last rehab session I had to tick off before I would be able to train fully with the group, I sustained a calf injury … that was the day after the qualifying final against Adelaide, so it was like probably 5-10 minutes to go in the session and my calf went on me and I just thought, “Oh, shoot, here we go”.

It just meant that I probably didn’t have the lead-up or the build-up into a prelim final that I would have liked.

I remember my last session leading into the prelim, that training session, I was literally looking at the clock the entire time just going, “Please get through. Please get through”.

There was certainly a lot of anxious moments within that period.

It was (the most nervous I'd been in my career) … I wanted to be a part of it, and it was hard to sit on the sidelines.

We also had a lot of pressure on ourselves as a team, we'd gone on this amazing undefeated run, so it was nerve-racking.

Those premierships (at North Melbourne) – you work so hard. They're so hard to win them and it’s so hard to even get into a Grand Final, let alone win one.

Reflecting on the slow burn, we’ve been able to bring in fresh talent, new faces and then to be able to set up the program to what it is now is something I’m really proud of.