By Tara Murray <\/p>\n
North Melbourne\u2019s Ruby Tripodi still pinches herself that she gets to run out each week with some of the best players in the AFLW.<\/p>\n
Tripodi has established herself in a Kangaroos midfield with the likes of Ash Riddell and Jasmine Garner.<\/p>\n
Speaking ahead of the Kangaroos first practice match with Essendon, Tripodi said everyone was ready to get things underway as they look to defend their title.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been really good,\u201d she said. \u201cObviously last year was unreal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had such a great year, quite a mature group, the way our coach Darren Crocker has been with us this pre-season acknowledged the premiership last year but this year is a new story and new chapter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very focused on the future and the opportunity ahead. It\u2019s been a good pre-season and everyone\u2019s very keen to get into some games with match sim and practice matches the next couple of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tripodi said says she is still in awe with the players she gets to play with.<\/p>\n
One of the younger players in the side, she\u2019s keen to take in everything that she can.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I still have so much to learn,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m so fortunate, especially to be in the midfield with the people we have in there, Jas Garner, Ash Riddell, Mia King and ruck Kim Rennie. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re all so hard working and talented people, I feel like there is so much to learn from them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do feel I\u2019m learning so much as a midfielder and there is still so much to go hopefully.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a really good pre-season, made some great strides and worked really hard, hopefully we can do that when it comes to games.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kangaroos played at Werribee on Saturday and for a girl from the west, Tripodi said it would be a special occasion.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice getting into the community of Wyndham, personally I\u2019ve grown up in Williamstown and I still live in Williamstown at the moment,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s very special to play out in the west.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s such a growing population out there in Wyndham. I think we\u2019re really fortunate to have such an opportunity to build a relationship and we\u2019ve got some things in place with our next generation academy and VFLW program having the connection with the Werribee Football Club.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to be able to support young kids coming through the opportunity to play AFL and AFLW.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a club we want to do everything that we can to support footy at the grassroots.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tripodi played at Williamstown CYMS before joining Williamstown in the Victorian Football League women\u2019s competition before being drafted.<\/p>\n
In June, the CYs announced that they had introduced the Ruby Tripodi Medal for the club\u2019s best-first year women\u2019s player.<\/p>\n
Tripodi said it still feels weird to have a medal named after her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m absolutely honoured,\u201d she said. \u201cThey are so lovely and they are such a supportive club and I was honestly not expecting that at all.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have been an amazing support to me, definitely would not be in that position without them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Tara Murray North Melbourne\u2019s Ruby Tripodi still pinches herself that she gets to run out each week…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-38157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38157","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=38157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}