NORTH Melbourne is through to its second consecutive AFL Women\u2019s Grand Final after comfortably defeating Port Adelaide in yesterday\u2019s preliminary final.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reflecting on the achievement post-match, Kangaroos coach Darren Crocker <\/em><\/strong>noted that it is \u201cgreat for the whole program.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s been an outstanding season to this point, not to have dropped the game and again today, especially early when the girls really stamped their authority on the game and set it up in the first half,\u201d Crocker said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s a nice reward again for all the effort that’s gone in throughout the off season and also the season.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n North Melbourne also managed to avoid the slow start that typically comes after a week\u2019s break, skipping out to a 26-point lead at the first change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe spoke about it before the game,\u201d Crocker noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI don’t know I even felt like we’d been waiting for a week. “Fair period of time for this game to come along, and they all felt that which tends to send a message that they were pretty eager to get out there and try to put their best foot forward and play our best football, which I thought we did early in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n North Melbourne also had really clean and strong foot skills, which Crocker noted \u201cI think that’s been a real growth in our group.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think that’s why we’re better placed this year,\u00a0coming into the grand final that there’s been a level of calmness and being considered right throughout the whole year, trying to stay as present as we possibly can, and that was evident again today,\u201d Crocker said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEven at half-time, we had a pretty commanding lead at half-time and your head can start to sort of get into the next week. But I thought even though the last quarter we probably got a little bit sloppy, but for the girls to continue to keep the scoreboard ticking over, make it difficult for Port to score was testament of how much we’ve grown this year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n