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Caitlin Latter has been a North Melbourne supporter \u201csince inside the womb\u201d. Too young for the club\u2019s 1996 premiership, she also missed out on a ticket to see their 1999 flag. She will be there on Sunday as the Kangaroos take the final bound in their mission to end a 24-year drought.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust You Wait And See\u201d has become North\u2019s motto for the finals, but when it comes to success for their long-suffering supporter base, there has been plenty of waiting and not enough seeing.<\/p>\n
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Mega fans Caitlin Latter (left) and Devina Potter with North Melbourne president Sonja Hood.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Jason South<\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cIt would mean everything,\u201d Latter, whose mother was a cheer squad member in the 1970s, said of the prospect of victory. \u201cWe haven\u2019t seen much success for a long time at this football club.\u201d<\/p>\n For a club sadly accustomed to lean periods, the 2020s have been as bad as it gets for the Kangaroos, whose men\u2019s team have won just 12 games in four seasons.<\/p>\n But through the dark times, North\u2019s women have provided hope and joy as one of the elite teams in the AFLW. They are the first of the expansion clubs to reach the grand final, and just the sixth overall, stats which highlight the difficulty in playing catch-up.<\/p>\n Though the AFLW is still in its fledgling phase, a premiership would be cherished at Arden Street. The women would join an exclusive club at North, whose four flags since joining the VFL in 1925 came in two successful eras in the 1970s and 90s.<\/p>\n So too would coach Darren Crocker, a member of the Kangaroos\u2019 1996 premiership team. After the passing of the great Ron Barassi, Denis Pagan is North\u2019s sole surviving premiership coach.<\/p>\n \u201cCrock could be in pretty exalted company there,\u201d North president Dr Sonja Hood said.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd for these girls, imagine they\u2019re writing history not just as our fifth premiership, but as our first women\u2019s premiership if they win it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019d be incredible for our club to have that as something to celebrate. I think you get wound up after a while the narrative about your club, and it all becomes a bit hopeless. We\u2019re not hopeless.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got an incredibly strong women\u2019s team. And we\u2019ve got an incredibly strong foundations in our men\u2019s team, and we\u2019re a really good, strong club. It will mean the world to our people.\u201d<\/p>\n North president Sonja Hood (left) with skipper Emma Kearney and chief executive Jennifer Watt.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Jason South<\/cite><\/p>\n North\u2019s connection to women\u2019s football began in the early 2010s, before it became mainstream or fashionable, under the watch of former chief executive Eugene Arocca and Sash Herceg, who was working with the Kangas\u2019 community arm the Huddle.<\/p>\n Hood, who was at the time North\u2019s general manager of community engagement, remembers the club fielding calls from Melbourne University\u2019s football program.<\/p>\n Whereas the men\u2019s team would drop a name and say Gill [former AFL chief and University Blues legend Gillon McLachlan] told us to call, Hood recalled, their women\u2019s team, known affectionately as the Muggers, adopted a different approach.<\/p>\n In exchange for training under lights at Arden Street, they offered players to help run Auskick on the weekend, and community programs out of the Huddle.<\/p>\n Emma Kearney and Darren Crocker are shooting for North Melbourne\u2019s fifth premiership.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>The Age<\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cNo one had ever rung us and offered to do something for us,\u201d Hood, decked out in the club\u2019s royal blue and a T-shirt emblazoned with \u201cJust You Wait And See\u201d, said. \u201cEveryone rings you as an AFL club and asks you to do stuff for them. And all of a sudden these women were offering a partnership, an actual reciprocity was amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n North\u2019s goodwill paid off years later when they were granted a licence to play in the AFLW. Their prized recruit was a Mugger \u2013 Emma Kearney, their inaugural captain and one of the best players in the league. Kearney said at the time her connection through Melbourne University was a key factor in joining.<\/p>\n It\u2019s understandable, then, why people at North roll their eyes when rivals intimate they offer extra incentives, such as free cars, to come and play for them.<\/p>\n \u201cThis operation runs about as lean as anything I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d Hood said. \u201cThe giving away cars to get places is not how North operates \u2013 never has.<\/p>\n \u201cIf they are coming here for free cars, I\u2019d like to line up for one. That\u2019d be sensational.<\/p>\n \u201cI kind of think there are people who might like to go back and rethink things they\u2019d said about players leaving clubs for North Melbourne. We had connections with a lot of the girls from before the AFLW had started, and they were connected to this place.\u201d<\/p>\n While former Muggers Kearney and Ash Riddell are key players on the field, Devina Potter has become a diehard fan. From Sydney, she became \u201cobsessed\u201d with the sport and North Melbourne through her ties with the Muggers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a lot of fun to go to Arden Street and see the girls play, follow them and be completely crazy about them,\u201d Potter said. \u201cIt\u2019s exciting to see the progress to what we hope is our first premiership.\u201d<\/p>\n Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. <\/i><\/b>Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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