Darren Crocker and his North Melbourne AFLW team have become footy’s most powerful team. Pictures: AFL Photos
AMONG the many stories you could tell about Darren Crocker and a career in the game that spans more than 30 years, there’s one in particular that is retold fondly within North Melbourne’s AFLW program that exemplifies what makes the Kangaroos’ all-conquering women’s coach, and its team, the envy of the competition.
It dates back to early June 2020, when he was told that his application to take the reins of North Melbourne’s AFLW side was successful. In a room flanked by the club’s key decision makers, an emotional Crocker responded to the news with a simple line: “I never thought I’d coach at the highest level again.”
That comment alone validated North Melbourne’s bold call to move on from inaugural coach Scott Gowans and hire Crocker. Although the AFLW competition was just six seasons old at that point, its athletes entirely part-time, and the majority of its programs still learning the ropes of what sustained success actually meant, Crocker has demanded everyone within the club treat it as such – as the highest level of the game – ever since.
“There has not been a moment where he’s thought AFLW is not the highest level,” North Melbourne’s general manager of women’s football, Erin Lorenzini, tells AFL.com.au. “It’s not a step down from men’s footy for him. He just knew he was coaching at the highest level. He is all-in on that.”
Crocker’s appointment was the first of a series of defining calls that have turned North Melbourne’s AFLW side into an unstoppable force, aiming to go 29 games unbeaten and become the first team in the competition’s history to win back-to-back flags in this Saturday night’s Grand Final.
North Melbourne AFLW coach Darren Crocker at a training session in November 2025. Picture: Nathan John, NMFC
While countless hours of think pieces, commentary and analysis throughout the season have plunged into how to shorten the talent gap in AFLW, the reality is the program gap is far more significant. Under Crocker, the Kangaroos have cultivated a meticulous plan to build the best women’s football program in the business.
It’s a plan that has seen North not only catch the leading pack, then nudge their noses ahead, but cleave open the most significant gap imaginable between them and the next best. It’s the program at Arden Street, more than anything else, that has put the club lightyears ahead of the competition.
In the changing of the guard between Gowans and Crocker at Arden Street, there was a recognition from inside North Melbourne that its AFLW program was good but not great. It wanted great, and Crocker reflected everything that was great about the Kangas. A premiership player, a much-loved person among supporters and ex-players that could weave the two together, a figure who could align its women’s side with the wider club, and a coach capable of supercharging its journey to the top.
Crocker was also someone who had been, and seen, almost everything in football during his time at North Melbourne. A 165-game premiership player across 14 seasons, 11 more as an assistant coach, a five-year stint as the club’s director of coaching, and someone who had led an AFL team on three separate occasions and for 15 games as a caretaker.
“First and foremost, fundamentally, he is an amazing football coach,” Lorenzini says. “He can teach the smallest of development things on why your eyes are up when the ball has gone in the air here, or why your footwork is happening like this, but then in that same moment he can have built an amazing rapport with the players. It’s that old story of what do you need more? Do you need the coaching? Or do you need the rapport? He’s got both. You don’t need to pick with ‘Crock’.
North Melbourne AFLW coach Darren Crocker speaks to his players during a training session in November 2025. Picture: Nathan John, NMFC
“He’ll be the first one to say that when he first came into the women’s space, he wasn’t as on top of it as he is now. He’s had to get better. We say to the girls, everyone comes in to get better every day. He does the same thing. At his age, he is trying to get better every day in terms of how he coaches, or on the leadership, or on the messaging, on all of that.”
Crocker’s project started with reflection. As he surveyed the task ahead of him back in 2020, he pondered what North Melbourne was doing well. But, more importantly, what it wasn’t. While the players were good, the system was good, the staff were good, something was missing. There was an idea of what the Kangas could be, but no discernible pathway to getting there.
“What he’s unbelievable at is the execution of our big picture planning,” North Melbourne’s highly rated assistant coach, Rhys Harwood, tells AFL.com.au. “That’s where he shines. It’s his ability to break down something aspirational, or a player’s development plan, then he actions it and gets into the weeds of it.
“His attention to detail in that regard and his ability to break that stuff down is exceptional. He’s obviously got such a wide range of experience in terms of coaching, development coaching, line coaching, managing programs, director of coaching … he understands where everything fits and how to get there.
“That was the biggest change after he came in. The Xs and Os part is still excellent, but it’s the ability to guide the players through each part. I sit through his reviews and he’s so incredibly nuanced with how he gets players to where he wants them to get to.”
North Melbourne AFLW assistant coach Rhys Harwood and head of strategy Erin Lorenzini at AFLW training in November 2025. Picture: Nathan John, NMFC
Central to that has been Crocker’s buy-in amongst the playing group. Emma Kearney, the club’s premiership captain of last season, calls him a ‘daggy dad’. It’s an apt description. Crocker glides effortlessly between prankster, with his players in stitches even at the clichéd cheesy jokes that don’t land among a group of predominantly Gen Z women, and serious footy coach. He earns their respect through effort.
“He would cycle through eight or nine individual reviews every day,” Harwood says. “He will sit down with each player and go through big picture stuff and little picture stuff. And it’s not 10 minutes and ‘see ya later’. He would spend as much time as they need, to the point where match committee starts three hours late every single week.
“He is a players’ coach. That’s why he’s so empowering, because he realises the value of spending the time with the players and empowering everyone else to take care of a lot of the other stuff. He realises the benefit that the program gets by him spending time with the players.”
Another story, warmly recalled by many at Arden Street, best summarises the friendly, personable and funny nature of the 58-year-old and highlights his relationship-building strengths. It’s one from a couple of years ago, when Crocker was dropping off one of his children at St Kilda’s trendy Espy Hotel in his beaten-up Toyota Tarago. As his son and a couple of mates got out of the people mover, ready to start their night, three young men got in after mistakenly thinking Crocker was their Uber home.
The three young men, it turns out, happened to be Saints players. They recognised Crocker, and Crocker recognised them. It was a hilarious scene. But, instead of kicking them out and sending them back on their way, the North Melbourne coach insisted on making a 45-minute detour to drop each of them home safely. That, more than almost anything else that happens on a football field each weekend, sums up the man in charge of the Kangas.
Darren Crocker and his North Melbourne players ahead of the 2025 season. Picture: AFL Photos
That same Tarago is said to be filled to the brim with Sherrins, just in case a player texts him at a random time of the day, at any random point in the year, wanting to do some touch work at their local ground. When that happens, Crocker hardly ever turns the opportunity down, no matter how far away they are.
It’s a family feel that’s been built over time. Even during the lead-up to this season’s qualifying final, one that North Melbourne won convincingly over Hawthorn, Crocker led the main training session accompanied by youngsters Parker and Paisley – the club’s Royal Children’s Hospital ambassadors – while players like Kearney, Alice O’Loughlin and Bella Eddey stayed behind to kick the footy with them afterwards.
It’s also one that’s been fostered by the wider Crocker family. Marcia, Darren’s wife, spends every home game in the Arden Street kitchen where she caters for the post-game family and friends functions. She also bakes for North Melbourne’s ‘Hedgehog of the Week’ award, the club’s internal version of its ‘Player of the Week’.
“He just connects everyone, because he’s that kind of guy,” Kearney tells AFL.com.au. “Everywhere we go, he will see someone that he knows. Whether it’s in the hotel on interstate trips, in the airport, wherever he is. He’s just a dad. He’s a daggy dad. But he’s also someone that can give you honest feedback when you need it.”
Darren Crocker and Emma Kearney celebrate North Melbourne’s win in the 2024 NAB AFLW Grand Final. Picture: AFL Photos
At the time Crocker was hired as North Melbourne’s new AFLW coach, the Kangas were in the midst of another crucial appointment. Harwood, then the club’s list manager, would also take on a broader strategy and assistant coaching role within its women’s program. Through that part of his position, he would forecast trends circulating in the women’s game and enact planning decisions to ensure the side was ahead of the curve in every aspect of its football department.
While small changes were being made thanks to Harwood’s new role, a damning 38-point finals loss to Fremantle to finish the 2022 season fast-tracked the process and became the second defining moment in North Melbourne’s rapid ascent to the top of the AFLW landscape.
Harwood was given carte blanche to make wholesale changes to list management and recruiting decisions, starting with a focus to target aerobic runners who could cover the ground in transition given a forecast reduction in stoppages and quicker ball movement across AFLW. It saw the club go from the third oldest squad in the League to the third youngest in one single off-season.
Alterations were also made to the entire high-performance plan to reflect this as well, as North Melbourne looked to first match and then overtake Brisbane’s best-in-class fitness program, while tweaks to Crocker’s game plan were also implemented thanks to data dictating the direction of the AFLW competition.
Harwood’s role in North Melbourne’s rise has him on the cusp of landing an AFLW senior coaching job elsewhere, following in the footsteps of previous Kangaroos assistant Sam Wright – now Collingwood coach – in taking his expertise to a rival club. Opposition teams are now hopeful Crocker’s coaching tree will eventually help close program gaps across the women’s landscape.
North Melbourne AFLW assistant coach Rhys Harwood runs a session with Kangaroos players. Picture: Nathan John, NMFC
Fellow assistants Ryan Pendlebury and Nick Devereux are also highly rated among the wider competition, while Kearney is another seen as a future AFLW coach at the conclusion of her playing days. Nicole Bresnehan has assisted in line coaching since an ACL injury ended her season, the multi-talented Libby Birch could go down the coaching pathway if she doesn’t opt to pursue a media career, while Ash Riddell, Kate Shierlaw and Eddey are others described as having a future in coaching in their blood.
“Rhys is fabulous,” Lorenzini says. “Will we lose him at some stage? Maybe. Do we want to? No. But our program has always celebrated the individuals that go on and achieve things because of our team’s success.
“If he one day gets a head coaching job somewhere, there will be no one that’s happier for him than our program, our players and all of our staff included. But that doesn’t mean we want to lose him. It’s just if we all keep trending up and trying to get better all the time, people will achieve individual things along the way.”
Crocker’s empowerment of others within North Melbourne’s wider AFLW program will inevitably lead to opportunities elsewhere. Lorenzini herself, the club’s head of women’s football, has recently been promoted as the club’s new strategy boss where she will replace James Gallagher after his appointment as the chief executive of the AFL Players’ Association.
But its primary benefit has been internal. The coach’s ability to dedicate his focus entirely on the development of his players, with others given the freedom to take a hands-on role in the continued evolution of the team, is what has helped turn uncut gems into stars of the competition.
Darren Crocker celebrates with Blaithin Bogue and Bella Eddey after North Melbourne’s win over Carlton in 2025 qualifying final. Picture: AFL Photos
Riddell is the primary example. Overlooked in two drafts, enabling her to be picked up by the Kangas as a free agent at the age of 22, she’s become one of the competition’s most prolific ball winners under Crocker’s watch. On Monday night, she became a League best and fairest, adding to the five All-Australian blazers already in her cabinet.
But she’s not the only one. Perennial All-Australian contenders Jas Ferguson and Amy Smith were both recruited outside the top 50 picks in their drafts, Ruby Tripodi arrived via a supplementary draft, Hawthorn gave up Eliza Shannon for a bag of chips in a trade, while Shierlaw didn’t cost much more from St Kilda. Erika O’Shea, Blaithin Bogue and Vikki Wall were all shrewd Irish recruits. Each of them will play off in yet another Grand Final this weekend.
That, in turn, has given North Melbourne the flexibility to now recruit from a position of strength. This year, its focus has been placed on securing a trade for the Western Bulldogs’ former No.1 draft pick Kristie-Lee Weston-Turner. The potential of that deal has already drawn the ire of rival clubs and outsiders demanding greater parity in the AFLW competition. But it’s perhaps better viewed through the lens of the Kangas’ opportunistic approach to recruiting decisions across recent seasons, an approach that has been shunned – much to their own detriment – by a host of other women’s programs.
Take last year’s blockbuster trade for dual All-Australian Eilish Sheerin, for example. Sheerin, from New South Wales, was initially desperate to return home and came close to joining Sydney. However, the Swans turned down the opportunity to sign her, citing that Sheerin was too intense for their program. It would be that type of intensity – the kind that saw Sheerin turn herself from one of the game’s best half-backs into one of its best midfielders in recent years – that eventually enticed North Melbourne to pounce.
A similar type of criticism had been levelled at Birch the year prior as she was attempting to find a third club following stints at the Western Bulldogs and Melbourne. But, like Sheerin, she has also flourished at Arden Street in a program that has shared her determination and endless appetite to improve.
Darren Crocker speaks to Libby Birch ahead of the 2025 season. Picture: AFL Photos
“I’m a huge advocate for women’s football,” Lorenzini says. “But I think we are in a phase where it’s so easy to use the words that we do in the men’s like ‘equalisation’. We are not in a phase of equalisation. We are in a phase where we should be bringing the bottom up and making the competition get better to reach new heights. The best of AFLW is really good, but I don’t think it helps anyone if others aren’t as good.
“What I will say is that it’s not my job to worry about the other clubs. It’s my job to keep getting us better. That will continue to be our focus. How do we keep getting better and how do we keep making sure our girls are in a good spot? Fitter, stronger, skills are better, more supported, how do we keep doing that? That’ll stay my single focus, rather than worrying too much about the commentary or what others are doing.”
North Melbourne has shown such introspection before. Having now become an unstoppable force in the AFLW, it’s easy to forget the Kangas spent much of their formative years trying and failing to match the competition’s best. There was a long period where Crocker’s side were bunnies to the likes of Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne.
After being outplayed by the Demons midway through the 2023 season, with the defeat coming just a few weeks after they were soundly beaten by the Lions as well, the playing group – led by captain Kearney – called a meeting at Arden Street in the days after. It would prove yet another decisive moment in the side’s rise, with the squad – rather than the staff – taking accountability for falling short and adopting their now-customary ruthless mentality.
“It felt like someone had died in the rooms afterwards,” Kearney says. “Our belief was just zapped out of us. The commentary from the outside was always that we couldn’t beat the big three. So, as a playing group, we had a really honest conversation as to what we needed. It was all around having a bit of a harder edge.
Emma Kearney with Royal Children’s Hospital ambassadors Paisley and Parker after North Melbourne’s win over Melbourne in the 2025 AFLW preliminary final. Picture: AFL Photos
“If things didn’t go our way, that would be OK. We just had to keep playing our way, being really ruthless in the way we go about things and not dropping our heads. It was the leaders that were driving it, but the entire playing group was part of it. ‘Crock’ sat in, a few of the coaches did, but they stayed silent. It was the players driving it. We just said, ‘Nup … let’s have some more mongrel about us’.”
It’s led to North Melbourne’s 28-match unbeaten run, and its 26-match winning streak, which has become the envy of the competition. In the 727 days between the side’s last defeat – its Grand Final loss to Brisbane in 2023 – and this weekend’s showpiece decider also against the Lions, the Kangaroos have barely looked flustered on their way to becoming football’s most dominant force.
Crocker, a huge sports fan, has preached a paraphrased mantra of tennis legend Roger Federer to North Melbourne’s players throughout that two-year stretch. The best are never afraid to lose a point. It’s what makes them willing to risk everything to win. The Kangas, through it all, have never been afraid to take those same risks. They’ve never been afraid lose a match, if it means chasing success. They now play – and win – in the image of their coach.
“You will just never meet a person that doesn’t like Darren Crocker,” Lorenzini says.
“He is just such a great guy, to his core. If you’re not a good person, women and women’s football teams will sniff that out pretty quickly. But he is such a good, likeable person. Everyone loves him.”
North Melbourne players in a meeting room as they prepare for the 2025 AFLW finals series. Picture: Nathan John, NMFC
