Emma Kearney has opened up about the tremendous strain that she was under while playing both football and cricket.
Kearney, 28, is now looking forward to her first Christmas break for “six or seven years” – but at one stage she admits she often hoped for matches to be called off to bring some relief from her exhausting schedule.
The 2018 AFLW best and fairest winner – who has moved from the Western Bulldogs to competition newcomer North Melbourne - will be absent when the Melbourne Stars open their WBBL campaign at the Junction Oval on December 1.
“For me, cricket never came naturally,” Kearney said. “Sometimes before a game, I’d hope it was gonna be a washout because I felt so much pressure to perform.”
Kearney, a right-arm medium paced bowler, knew halfway through the 2017/18 WBBL season that her time playing two sports would have to end. She usually had one-day cricket for Victoria to warm her up for the WBBL but this time, she had come in underprepared.
“I had no first-class cricket to come off the back of. I knew it would take a few games to get the momentum rolling, but it just never happened,” she says.
Kearney describes herself as ultra-competitive but found she couldn’t find the time to train and work as hard she wanted to because of her full-time job. At the time, she was working at the AFL. Previously, working as a teacher had meant longer summer holidays and plenty of time to do “extras”.
At risk of burning herself out, and after going through a tough 2017/18 season, where her bowling average doubled and her economy rate went from 5.28 runs per over to 8.23, Kearney says she “grew out of love for cricket”.
Growing up in Cavendish, a small town in the Grampians with a population of 334, Kearney had a paddock for a backyard. In summer, her Dad would set the paddock up as cricket field for Kearney and her two brothers. In winter, the goal posts went up.
It was only when she was forced to stop playing football at aged 12 - because there was no pathway - that cricket came to the fore.
Kearney says that footy feels natural and that she’s a completely different person before games.
“I just sit there, don’t think about much, and go about my business,” she said.
In one of the games of the season against Adelaide in Round 3, Kearney, with white zinc streaked across her nose, had the audacity to kick out to herself in the goal square, feint left, and then step around 2017 AFLW best and fairest winner Erin Phillips, before taking a bounce, running 20-metres and launching the ball clear of the Dogs’ defensive 50.
With five minutes to play in the AFLW grand final, Kearney’s rundown tackle on Brisbane’s Kaitlyn Ashmore sealed the premiership for the Dogs. Ashmore, one of the competition’s best runners, accelerated away from a stoppage in her defensive 50, only to be caught and bear-hugged by Kearney.
The set shot, from 30-metres out on a slight angle, was no gimmick, especially with a wet ball. Kearney kicked it to put the Dogs ahead by 12 points, then jumped on teammate Ellie Blackburn, who held her aloft while she pumped her fist and screamed “come on” at the top of her lungs.
With Kearney’s decision to prioritise her football already made, the Herald Sun reported that the AFL was considered a fixture comprised of six home-and-away games and two finals – despite North Melbourne and Geelong entering to expand the competition to ten teams.
“Seeing the fixture, I was quite disappointed,” Kearney said.
News of the AFL’s proposal was met by similar disappointment from other AFLW players, led by Melbourne’s Daisy Pearce. Pearce said that although the proposed competition is being billed by the AFL as an elite women’s competition, it is really a “gimmicky tournament”.
When Kearney found out, she messaged her mum in disbelief: “That’d be right. The AFL decides to shorten their season when I decide to quit cricket.”
“It’s not great if pre-season is longer than the actual season. We want to play more games at a higher level,” she said.
The AFL has since confirmed that teams will play six home-and-away games before two weeks of finals. Although the AFLW fixture made Kearney think twice, she knew her original decision to quit cricket was the right one.
“I think I’m gonna be happier when I’m not playing,” she says, before adding that she’ll mostly miss the downtime between balls and between innings, and in her words, “talking absolute rubbish”.
That rubbish included the odd sledge, though she always feared seeing the ball disappear for six soon after. In footy, Kearney says she’s “pretty mean”.
“I’m willing to say anything to put ‘em off. I tend not to sledge Daisy, though,” she said.
Kearney accepted the role of sport and recreation co-ordinator at The Huddle – North’s not-for-profit community arm – when she moved to the club. It’s hard to imagine the spectacled, smiling former school teacher sledging anyone.
Despite her own decision, Kearney says young girls probably won’t be forced to choose between codes by sporting bodies until they’re paid more.
“For me, women’s sport isn’t quite at that level where you can leave your career. When they pay enough, they’ll have the right to say, ‘Nah, you have to commit.’”
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