Emma Kearney has praised the North Melbourne Tasmanian Kangaroos’ new coach, Darren Crocker, with full faith he has what it takes to bring the team to the next level.

“He’s just had so much footy experience and he knows the environment that you need to have at that elite level,” Kearney told RSN.

“He’s just got a wealth of experience and he creates really good relationships with all the players, which I think when you’re coaching women’s sport you’ve got to make the girls feel really valued and that’s what he does really well.

“There's probably a major shift [from last season] but he makes it really competitive [training], so we all love a bit of competition, me in particular … I love it, he does that to sort of challenge us as well which is really good.”

Kearney said it’s about focusing on the controllables and not dwelling on the sudden end to the 2020 campaign. 

“It was a disappointing end to the season, but everyone has to move on from that because it’s a total new ball game,” she said.

“Every other team’s going to be improving from what they did last year and the likes of a Carlton, Fremantle, Melbourne who were still in it, they’re looking to win a premiership as well, so for us it’s just about resetting and improving on what we were able to do last season.

“We are all playing the game to win a premiership, that’s why we play isn’t it? So for us its putting it to the back of our minds and focusing on what we can control and that’s further development of our squad and further connection so we can go to another level.”

With a new wave of talent joining the team through the draft, Kearney says there is a renewed energy around Arden St.

“With 'Crock’s' experience and making subtle changes to our game plans and also the back-to-back pre-season means our fitness goes to another level and also the knowledge of the players has also improved,” she said.

“We’ve drafted a couple of young girls and the young girls coming through the system now, they’ve just got that natural ability that they can just pick up the game and slot in straight away, so having a few of them coming into our squad just brings a bit of enthusiasm and energy which is probably what we were after.”

Looking back, Kearney said the six month lockdown due to COVID-19 provided her with an opportunity for a mental reset.

“I’m a bit of an introvert actually so I enjoyed a bit of time to myself,” she added..

“I got away to my parents farm which is three and a half hours away from Melbourne and spent three months there, so helping dad on the farm every now and again, but also I was working from home so that side of things was alright.

“For me, it was a bit of  a mental freshen-up because I was doing football and cricket for so long, you sort of go season to season and you don’t get a break from sport, so this was probably the first time since I was a kid I had the longest period without sport.

“I just used it as a bit of a mental freshen-up, I’m getting a bit old now so I need to look after the body as best as I can and I utilised that time but I must say after six months of lockdown I started to get itchy feet and wanted to get back out there with the girls.”