Adelaide players celebrate the club’s third AFLW premiership after a hard-fought grand final win. Photo: AFL MEDIA
ADELAIDE 4.5 (29) d MELBOURNE 2.4 (16)
Once more, with feeling. As if following those archetypal, demanding film director’s instructions, Adelaide’s rock-solid cast again expertly played its role as a premiership side, outworking and outlasting yet another grand final opponent to take out a third AFLW crown and avenging last year’s bitter big stage defeat.
As with their earlier, home-and-away season encounter with the Demons, Adelaide kicked more minors than majors and the result could’ve been even more one-sided, but ultimately it was the Crows’ defence, forward pressure, and experience that won the day.
Melbourne appeared to half-tag official best-on-ground medallist, Adelaide’s Anne Hatchard, in the first half, but it was hardly a winning strategy. She collected 15 first half possessions, four clearances and seven marks, despite missing a short-range set shot directly in front of goal.
Hatchard, who finished the day with a match-high 26 possessions and five clearances, started the second half with an inside 50 that helped set up a Danielle Ponter set shot goal from point-blank range following her mark in the goal square.
And as it was all season for Adelaide, Hatchard, and fellow All-Australian midfielder Ebony Marinoff (22 touches, seven tackles) were the perfect one-two punch in hunting, gathering, and distributing the ball: If one wasn’t punishing the opposition, the other one was.
For all the talk this week of Melbourne captain and club legend Daisy Pearce possibly having a “Shane Crawford moment” — winning a grand final as he did with Hawthorn in 2008, then immediately hanging up the boots, that speculation will now centre on Adelaide icon Erin Phillips.
Despite starting the match in the middle instead of up forward, she had just one possession in the first term. In the second, though, Phillips was electric, accumulating nine possessions, four clearances, and a goal from a clever snap from close range, off her left boot. She finished with 16 disposals, four clearances, and three tackles.
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While Hatchard, Phillips, and Marinoff set the Crows’ first half tone and Jasmyn Hewett added a major, down back, Chelsea Randall, Sarah Allan, Najwa Allen, Marijana Rajcic, and Shelley Heath stymied the Dees’ biggest offensive threats, often ganging up on goalkicking power forward Tayla Harris and keeping her without a possession from the opening bounce until midway through the third term.
Pearce started down back, and while she had 16 possessions on the afternoon, just two came in the first term, while teammates Tyla Hanks, Shelley Scott, and Eliza West were conspicuously quiet.
Eliza McNamara was lively with her 17 touches, and speedy Demon Alyssa Bannan got her side on the scoreboard – and avoided a goalless first half – by seizing on a rare Crows error with under a minute left in the second term, cutting off a stray switch kick deep in Melbourne’s forward 50, then racing into an open goal before blasting it home.
With Karen Paxman putting her stamp on the match en route to a 19-possession performance, and Sinead Goldrick (a team-high 20 disposals) helping stifle Crows attacks, the Dees found increased energy in the third quarter, with their run and spread finally taking shape and momentarily putting the slightest of scares into the Crows.
While Kate Hore added a major, Melbourne missed two golden chances that could have reduced their deficit within a straight kick, as both Paxman and Lily Mithen both missed gettable set shots.
Melbourne continued to pepper the goals in the final term but missed the big sticks. Maddie Gay missed a snap that could have pulled the Demons within a solitary point halfway through the last stanza. Almost immediately, the Crows punished the miss, with Ponter marking a long kick, then slotting a sealing set shot that expanded Adelaide’s lead to the final 13-point margin.
