NORTH Melbourne’s stellar 2024 AFL Women’s season continued on Sunday afternoon, comfortably beating Sydney by 10 goals in Hobart.

It was not all smooth sailing for the Roos early, with Sydney really making it a back and forth tussle in the first quarter as the two sides traded goals.

But according to Kangaroos coach Darren Crocker, his side’s persistence was what helped opened up the game after quarter time. 

“All credit to the Swans. I thought they played with some real intent and effort,” Crocker said.

“Even though we got away on the scoreboard it was actually quite a tight, contested game. “I think they laid over a hundred tackles. “We laid nearly a hundred tackles and in dry, mild conditions, and I know the ground’s a little bit smaller, but that’s a lot of energy and a lot of effort getting spent on trying to lock the ball in and I thought they were really good at that.

“But we just needed to persist, take a bit more territory when we had opportunities. Wasn’t really a game for a lot of uncontested ball or uncontested marks. So it became a little bit of a chaos game to be able to get the ball forward and give your forwards an opportunity.”

Another area of the game that North Melbourne was dominant in was the clearances, which Crocker puts down to ruck dominance.

“Obviously the midfield are going really well and there’s some really great synergy there,” Crocker said.

“But it stems from our ruck and I thought Kim Rennie was terrific today. I think she had something like 35 hit outs and a number of them to advantage, and then when she wasn’t in there, then Emma King goes in there as well. So I thought both of that both of our rucks were able to give us an opportunity to take the ball away from the clearances quite well.”

One player who really impressed on the wing was Irish second year Roo Niamh Martin.

“Throughout preseason we put Niamh on a wing at times at training, and then there was against Richmond she played a little bit of time on the wing, not as much as today”, Crocker said.

“She’s really wanting to learn the game and different aspects of the game and to be able to push forward and really challenging, and kick a couple of goals.

“It’s just such a bonus to be able to have wingers that that are able to do that on both feet as well left and right. She’s developing really well and it’s nice that she can go into a different role and continue to grow her game.”

Erika O’Shea did give North Melbourne an injury scare, but Crocker assured Roos fans that there is nothing to worry about there.

“The update is it’s not as serious as at first thought,” Crocker confirmed, speaking about O’Shea’s injury scare.

“She rolled her ankle, nothing too serious. She’ll see how she goes this week, but they don’t expect her to be out for much time at all.”