It’s been 5,493 days since Brent Harvey ran around in North Melbourne’s fourth premiership, and there arguably hasn’t been a more exciting time at the club since.

Coming off their first Preliminary Final berth since 2007, the Kangaroos’ future is bright.

At 36, Harvey is desperate to taste success once again.

“You’ve got to dream, and I haven’t stopped dreaming since I started playing in 1996,” he told AFL.com.au’s Trade Week Radio.

“It was excellent to win two finals (in 2014). We got belted against Sydney and I think that was just a realization of exactly where we are at; how hard you have to work to actually get to the next week.

“Sydney belted us and Hawthorn belted Sydney, so we’ve got a little bit of work to do.”

PRESS PLAY above to listen to the Harvey interview

The introduction of experienced players Shaun Higgins and Jarrad Waite, as well as the continued development of the likes of Ben Cunnington, Shaun Atley and Jack Ziebell puts North in a strong position for next season.  

“I’d like to think that we’re going to improve, and if we improve we’ll make a Grand Final, but we’re realists as well. We know that clubs are improving all around us in every aspect of the game.

“You’ve got to dream. I’d love to play in another premiership before I finish up, and who knows what’s around the corner. It’s very hard to predict. We just want to have a really good crack and if we do that we give ourselves every chance.”

Harvey will again be vital to the Kangaroos’ hopes in 2015, his impressive season highlighted by being named in the Australian squad to take on Ireland in next month’s International Rules series.

“I think it’s the opportunity that you can’t say no to when you’re rubbing shoulders with Nate Fyfe, (Travis) Boak, (Chad) Wingard, (Luke) Hodge, (Joel) Selwood, (Patrick) Dangerfield, the list just keeps going on and on and on. That was the biggest thing for me to mix with those players,” he said on SEN’s The Run Home.

“You come towards the end of your career and you don’t know if you’re going to get that opportunity again so when they asked me to play and I found out who was playing I said: ‘yep, mate get me in there I’m not missing that’.

“I spoke to Brad (Scott) about playing and he was the same. He said ‘you can’t let this opportunity go, you’ve got to mix with the different coaches, learn something new from them, learn something new from the players.’”