AFTER waiting for his first Navy Blue outing for over 18 months, Brodie Kemp just wanted to get through his first game unscathed. 

He did more than that.

While the result may not have gone Carlton's way on the weekend, Kemp was a shining light in his defence on a disappointing day for the Blues, accumulating 18 disposals and eight marks in his first hitout since May 2019.

“It wasn’t the result we wanted but from an individual point of view, it was nice to get through the whole game unscathed and it was the first one in a couple of years,” Kemp said. 

“I’ve watched a lot of footy for quite some time and sometimes you can get frustrated and want to be out there and contribute to the team.

"To spend two years out just looking on has built that inner drive within me and gratefulness to finally be out there playing.”

It's been a long road for Kemp since he was handed his first Carlton guernsey by Patrick Cripps and Sam Docherty on the night he became a Blue.

Rehabbing an ACL injury when he arrived at IKON Park, back and ankle injuries have delayed his return, but he made up for lost time on the weekend.

Understandably, there were more than a few pre-game nerves, but he noted a few people who spoke to him pre-game that allowed him to focus on the game at hand.

“'DOK' [Daniel O’Keefe] and 'Lukey' [Luke Power] have always been really good with me, so they just came to me and gave me a quick talk and said there’s no expectations or anything, just go out there and have fun,” he said. 

“Matt Kennedy said the same thing: 'go out there, have fun, use your weapons and play to your strengths', so that calmed me down a little bit and made it easier to just go out and enjoy it.”

With Kemp’s recovery tracking well, the natural next step is for him to look towards an AFL debut whenever that comes.

He acknowledged that, while he's delighted to be back playing football, the work doesn't stop now and it simply won't just happen.

“I think the AFL debut will be front of mind and to get there is using my strengths, trust the process and compete hard in the games I have in the following weeks and hopefully get the call up from ‘Teaguey’,” he said. 

“If that doesn’t come, that’s alright, I’m still happy to be playing footy week in and week out.”