Emma Kearney expected to fire up in match-up against former Western Bulldogs teammates
Midfield star Emma Kearney is about to face her former side for the first time, and there’s sure to be fire in the battle. Kearney’s former Bulldogs teammates reveal who’ll be in the firing line.
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THE Western Bulldogs are expecting plenty of chat from their former midfield star Emma Kearney when the queen of the sledge comes face-to-face with her ex-teammates.
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Kearney — the league’s best player in 2018 and a two-time Western Bulldogs best-and-fairest — will lead North Melbourne against her old side in Tasmania tonight.
Emerging Bulldogs star Ash Utri, who remains good friends with Kearney, expects some choice words from the damaging midfielder.
“I don’t think she’ll go for me, I think she’ll go for other girls: Blackers (Ellie Blackburn), Kim Rennie,” Utri said.
“I don’t think it’ll be personal, it’ll just be banter. It’ll be good fun.
“No one sledges me, no one knows enough about me; she’s probably the only one who has material on me.
“She’s done it at training last year and it never really bothers me. Just that I’m crap at hockey, ‘go back to the hockey field’, stuff like that.
“But I know it’s not personal. She’s just so passionate on the field.”
Bulldogs defender Hannah Scott said there were no hard feelings and she understood why Kearney made the move to start-up outfit North.
“My opinion was I would have been very surprised if North didn’t chase her pretty hard - I think there was a little bit of an expectation that was going to happen,” Scott said.
“With that Melbourne Uni connection, I thought there was a high possibility she was going to go over to North.
“ … (The attitude at the club) was just see it for what it is, it’s unavoidable, pretty much we just have to step up.
“Not so much to replace her, because you can’t just replace Emma Kearney … but it was just everyone steps up collectively and we build the brand we’re working on.”
Scott said Kearney’s white-line fever was textbook.
“She’s quite open about her lip on the field and she’s quite good at it,” Scott said.
“I think it can be either one of two ways, where she can either not say much or she’ll get stuck right in.”
Utri has become one of the benefactors of the club’s biggest loss.
She now finds herself in the engine room as an inside midfielder alongside co-captain Blackburn and Mon Conti.
“I was pretty upset to lose someone that had helped me so much - in the team and as a person,” Utri said.
“(But) she’s actually opened up a hole there for me, which is quite nice.
“I was out on the wing last year … her leaving kind of gave me a bigger opportunity, which I’ve loved.
“Mon Conti has jumped in there as well, it’s giving us a shot.”
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Originally published as Emma Kearney expected to fire up in match-up against former Western Bulldogs teammates
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