Over the last few seasons the North Melbourne Tasmanian Kangaroos have fallen short of their ultimate aim of pushing for premiership success, but skipper Emma Kearney says they can build on recent promise.

After a strong start to 2022 that included big wins over finals-bound Collingwood and Fremantle, the side fell to Melbourne and Brisbane at the back end of the season before suffering elimination at the first finals hurdle at the hands of the Dockers.

Kearney has been at the Kangaroos for all of the highs and the lows of the program, and with a spate of new recruits ahead of the upcoming season, she says the side is ready to build on the strong foundations set in recent years.

“We want to keep pushing for finals spots. It’s been really disappointing falling short in the finals campaign, we’re looking to keep pushing for a prelim and then hopefully a Grand Final,” Kearney said.

“We’re focusing on establishing our connection in terms of our group, we’ve got a lot of new faces this season and we’re just trying to build momentum from the last couple of years.

"We’ve just introduced our new draftees and they’ve been coming down for the last week or so. They’re bringing a lot of energy … we’re looking forward to the season.”

After the departures of the likes of Kaitlyn Ashmore, Daisy Bateman and Jess Duffin, the Kangaroos have looked to the draft to replenish their playing list.

Along with the five new draftees, North has recruited Erika O’Shea and Vikki Wall from Ireland and rookie listed Zoe Savarirayan.

Kearney says she believes the group hasn’t lost anything with the departures of a number of regular players from last season.

"We’ve obviously lost a lot of experienced players … in terms of maintaining our core group we’ve still got the likes of Ash Riddell, Jas Garner and Jenna Bruton all holding down the fort in the midfield,” she said.

"I’m really confident with the new talent we’ve brought in and our two Irish recruits will bring a different bit of flair for us which is really exciting … [O’Shea] is super quick so she’s an exciting prospect for us.

“I don’t think we’ll be disadvantaged at all given the amount of players we lost … there’s a few little tinkerings with our game-plan that’ll hopefully put us in good stead for the season."