AFTER his side romped to a 36-point win, North Melbourne Tasmania coach Darren Crocker was critical of the fixture’s role in the lack of spectators for his side’s clash with Port Adelaide.

With a turnout of 943 people, the crowd was the lowest for this season despite the top-billing Kangaroos flying to this point in the season. The unusual combination of the earlier timeslot to accommodate the men’s preliminary final as well as the use of the Western Bulldogs’ homeground and the heavy rain, compounded the issue.

When asked if the fixturing was a disservice to his star-studded side, Crocker was tight-lipped initially.

“You probably should be asking the AFL that [question],” Crocker stated.

“But [to have] a Friday night game [at] five o’clock at Whitten Oval, when it could be our home game, sometime scheduled over the weekend at Arden Street, at potentially a time that’s more conducive to getting crowds there, like we regularly pack out Arden Street, given the right fixturing with times.

“That’s an AFL question about fixturing us out at Whitten Oval at 5 o’clock on a Friday night.”

When pressed further, he was adamant that the team would continue to play no matter the conditions, despite being disappointed with the schedule they were dealt.

“We will just keep fronting up no matter what,” he elaborated.

“No matter who it is, when it is, where it is, that’s pretty much our mantra, so we will just keep coming and trying to play our best football whenever we have to play and whoever and wherever.

“I think from a scheduling perspective, it wasn’t the ideal fixturing for us.”

One of the teams in the competition on current form, the Kangaroos are undefeated after four matches. With a dominate first half (41-0) setting up the contest, his side were kept goalless in the second half after that inclement weather set in.

“If you had have said when I was driving out here that we’d be 41 points up at half-time to zero, I would have sort of taken that every day of the week,” Crocker said.

“Obviously [in] the second half the conditions changed dramatically, it was almost cyclonic there in the third quarter, which made it really tough going for all the players.

“At times I got a little bit frustrated, we as coaches got a little bit frustrated with the overuse [of the ball], we felt like overused the hands a little bit in the second half but all in all it was a strong win.”

When asked about their ability to rack up contested possessions against Port Adelaide, Crocker said that that was their focus given the conditions they were presented with.

“If you purely look at the numbers, like it was our second-best ever win around plus 46 (contested possessions) in the contest,” he said.

“In wet weather you’ve got to make sure you are winning the contest and so we won that by 46 and 123 tackles is our best ever effort in the tackle count as well for pressure.

“When you are going to come up in those conditions, they are the two areas you want to make sure you get [it] right and we were pretty strong in both those areas, it’s just your ability to transition and move the ball.”

When asked about how their contest work fed into their strategy coming into the match, Crocker detailed the way in which sides should look to match up against Port Adelaide given their gameplan.

“[They were] two strong things we wanted to focus on, we knew coming in that Port Adelaide are really strong around the contest and they like to see them get territory off that contest,” Crocked explained.

“They’ve been bringing a lot of effort to their games so we wanted to make sure that we were stronger than them in those two areas coming in.”

One of their best young talents this season has been midfielder Ruby Tripodi. She contributed heavily on Friday night kicking a goal to go with 15 disposals, 13 tackles, five clearances and a mark.

Crocker gave her plaudits for her work ethic and “super” preseason which has allowed them extra versatility in the forwardline.

“She’s just provided us some great depth through the midfield,” he said.

“Jenna Bruton was probably that fourth go-to in the midfield [rotation] previously, but she’s now found a nice little role for herself playing forward and we sort of needed to find someone else.

“Ruby really, to her credit, her off-season was amazing with how diligent she was, to take on board feedback if she wanted to play in the midfield to work extremely hard, and then really set herself up for the pre-season.

“Her preseason was super as well so she really needs to take the credit because she’s the one that’s actually put the work in.”