{"id":318369,"date":"2025-11-30T10:26:32","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T10:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/318369\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T10:26:32","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T10:26:32","slug":"roos-champ-undecided-on-future-after-grand-final-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/318369\/","title":{"rendered":"Roos champ undecided on future after Grand Final win"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__summary\">\n                Another premiership has kept the fire burning in Emma Kearney&#8217;s belly as she weighs up possible retirement\n            <\/p>\n<p>                                Emma Kearney after the AFLW Grand Final between North Melbourne and Brisbane at Ikon Park, November 29, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n<p>VETERAN Roo Emma Kearney says that Saturday night&#8217;s Grand Final win won&#8217;t play a role in her upcoming decision on whether to play on in 2026.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>At an Arden St press conference earlier this week, the now three-time premiership player acknowledged that she had a one-year contract in front of her from North Melbourne.<\/p>\n<p>AFLW GRAND FINAL\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.afl.com.au\/aflw\/matches\/8249\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Full match coverage and stats<\/a><br \/>\u00a0<br \/>Speaking to AFL.com.au after the win, Kearney conceded &#8220;you&#8217;re a long time retired&#8221;, and that she\u2019ll make a decision in the coming weeks.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>&#8220;Hopefully I&#8217;ll sign on,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I love playing footy, I just feel like I can contribute at the level, and I love doing it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>                    Darren Crocker and Emma Kearney after the AFLW Grand Final between North Melbourne and Brisbane at Ikon Park, November 29, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n<p>The lead-in to this decider was a little different for the former captain in her fourth Grand Final, relinquishing the role (now held by star Jasmine Garner) before the season.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>&#8220;There&#8217;s less things I have to do \u2013 I don\u2019t have to do the coaches press conference and things like that, so I felt a little bit more relaxed with that sort of stuff,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Just go about my business and lead by how I play.&#8221;<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>In a match she described as &#8220;tough \u2026 high transition&#8221;, the 36-year-old defender finished up with 17 disposals, 10 of those intercepts, and had more than a few sparks flying in her characteristically assertive on-field style.<\/p>\n<p>                    Emma Kearney makes contact with Isabel Dawes during the AFLW Grand Final between North Melbourne and Brisbane at Ikon Park, November 29, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n<p>And the fierce contest, played out in front of 12,741 passionate fans, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afl.com.au\/aflw\/news\/1456961\/north-melbourne-kangaroos-veteran-emma-kearney-urges-rivals-to-get-to-our-level-leaves-future-open-ahead-of-aflw-grand-final\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">only reiterated her comments earlier this week<\/a>, encouraging the competition to invest in their women\u2019s programs and compete with the grand finalists for the past three seasons.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>&#8220;Just shows you that if you invest in your women&#8217;s program you can achieve this stuff,&#8221; Kearney said post-match.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>&#8220;You saw Carlton using 100 percent of their soft cap and they make a prelim.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Seven out of 10 Grand Finals from Brisbane, and they&#8217;ve always really cared about their women&#8217;s program. Like we have so much respect for them as a football club \u2013 the men\u2019s and the women&#8217;s.&#8221;<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>&#8220;We do the same here \u2013 we use up a lot of our soft cap, we&#8217;ve great coaches, we&#8217;ve got great high performance.<br \/>\u00a0<br \/>&#8220;So the rest of the competition need to start doing that, because we want the comp to grow.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another premiership has kept the fire burning in Emma Kearney&#8217;s belly as she weighs up possible retirement Emma&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":318370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-318369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/318370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}