Gemma Houghton’s Dockers were too strong for the Eagles in driving rain on Sunday. Photo: AFL MEDIA.
Fittingly, the Pride Round — once finally, skillfully calibrated by the league, after COVID 19 again wreaked havoc with the fixture — belonged to the Lions.
While they were one of six teams to get out to a 2-0 start, they set an AFLW record for dominance, holding the Suns to an all-time lowest final score.
Brisbane looks ravenous for a flag — remember, they lost the league’s first two Grand Finals — as does Adelaide, which again decisively won, at a crowdless Blacktown ground, as a quarantining condition.
Carlton again is singing the blues after a close loss, at the expense of a strong Western Bulldogs side, while Collingwood and Melbourne grew stronger with its convincing wins.
Out west, Fremantle is happy to bank four points and continue the league’s longest unbeaten streak after a Derby win on its fan-free, soupy home deck. Perth’s lockdown severely limited training for the Dockers and Eagles and saw players from both clubs who double as firefighters spend days leading up to the match, combatting damaging bushfires.
Meanwhile, besides the Suns, for the three other newest sides — the Giants, Cats, and Tigers — it was another day of being taken to the woodshed.
WESTERN BULLDOGS 6.6 (42) d CARLTON 5.6 (36)
In a live, televised, three-quarter time interview in this match, with his side down 10 points to the premiership hopeful Blues, Doggies’ senior coach Nathan Burke confidently said his side’s fitness and pressure would prevail. Turns out, Nostradamus has nothing on Burke.
A super-charged Ellie Blackburn’s long-range snap from just beyond the 50 metre arc to start the final term fightback served as an ominous warning. In the ensuing five minutes, Blackburn (22 touches and 11 contested possessions) and Kirsten McLeod kicked their club in front with additional goals, largely set up by their hardworking teammate Deanna Berry’s manic forward pressure. Doggies’ half-forward Brooke Lochland also was influential, laying seven tackles.
At the final siren, it was a case of another round, another tough, hard-to-shake, one-goal loss for Carlton. This one must especially hurt, not only because of their lead vanishing into the ether, but also because they couldn’t capitalize on the Doggies’ first quarter inaccuracy, which saw both McLeod and Fitzgerald surprisingly misfire from point blank range and Blackburn shank a set-shot on the siren.
Carlton had air superiority inside their forward half, out-marking the Doggies 11-4, with Tayla Harris shining. She kicked two goals, including one pearler in the dying seconds of the third term, playing on after marking and bombing a kick from just beyond the 50 metre arc, which teammate Darcy Vescio shepherded through the goal square. Harris also threw her hat in the ring for mark of the year, soaring over a pack to take a grab.
But missed opportunities would again haunt Carlton. The Blues went forward 16 times in the match’s last 10 minutes — accounting for nearly half of their 35 total inside 50s — but Harris and teammates Georgia Gee (17 touches), Maddie Prestapakis (24 touches) all missed set-shots, as their side dug itself into an early 0-2 hole.
COLLINGWOOD 6.8 (44) d GEELONG 2.4 (16)
The characteristically low-scoring Cats couldn’t possibly have gotten off to a better start in this one, as in the match’s first 30 seconds, debutant forward Olivia Barber miraculously back-heeled a crumb through the goal square from her first kick in AFLW footy.
They got a second goal from Maddie Boyd and if the Cats hadn’t conceded three coach-killing 50 metre penalties that gifted Pies’ Ruby Schleicher and Mikala Cann easy set-shots from point-blank range, they might’ve held Collingwood scoreless in the first term. Instead, Geelong went to the quarter-time break ahead by a slim two points.
Incredibly, against the Pies vaunted midfield, the Cats dominated the early centre clearances and inside 50 counts, but Collingwood’s star forward Chloe Molloy snapped from the pocket to establish a seven-point half time edge. Geelong entered the final term down by only 10 points, but Breanna Davey (25 touches) firmly put her foot down, crumbing one goal from a marking contest, then just 15 seconds later helping set up another for Irish teammate Sarah Rowe, with a booming kick from a centre clearance.
Britt Bonnici gathered 24 possessions and Steph Chiocci added 16 of her own, as the Pies, who’ve started an AFLW season 2-0 for the first time in their five-year history, are looking dangerous.
MELBOURNE 7.2 (44) d RICHMOND 2.4 (16)
Hang on. Before we get to the details of the Demons’ victory, one has to wonder what on Earth Tiger Katie Brennan ever did to anger the footy gods.
If anyone ever has been in a goal-kicking drought, it’s Brennan, who hasn’t kicked a major since Round 3 last year. Last round against Brisbane, she missed in front of the sticks three times. In this round, the footy gods again cruelly vexed Brennan near the half time siren. Her snap, which would’ve brought the Tiges within one straight kick and given her teammates a huge lift, looked like a sure thing off her boot — only to smack the goal post for a minor score. Instead, the Dees held an 11-point advantage at the major break and cruised to a comfortable win.
The Dees’ “usual suspects” were ever-present, with Lily Mithen getting a team-high 20 touches and laying seven tackles, Karen Paxman collecting 19 possessions and kicking a late goal, while Tyla Hanks (19 possessions, six tackles) was also superb. Alyssa Bannan (two goals) and Tegan Cunningham (one goal), meanwhile, made the most of their single-digit possessions, as the Dees did pretty much whatever they pleased in the second half.
While Monique Conti — the 2018 AFLW Grand Final best on ground winner for the Western Bulldogs — roared for Richmond, with a match-leading 27 touches, it was eons between goals for the Tiges.
An opening minute major to Sabrina Frederick, off the back of a 50-metre penalty, and Sarah Hosking’s set-shot with less than two minutes remaining to play, was all the firepower the Tigers could muster.
Melbourne’s win is a bit bittersweet, as pocket rocket Kristel Petrevski had to be helped off the ground by two trainers in the third term after doing a hammy.
NORTH MELBOURNE 5.6 (36) d ST KILDA 1.4 (10)
Under gray skies at Arden Street Oval, North again convincingly won, though it didn’t wear out the scoreboard as it usually does, as a pinball player might rock the machine into tilt mode.
The Roos’ presence in their forward 50 in the first term looked as if they were an occupying army. Roos’ defender Tahlia Randall even got in on the action, taking an intercept mark, then converting a set-shot for her first AFLW goal, one of two majors North kicked, while holding the Saints to just one behind.
It looked far better for St Kilda in the second term. In the ruck, Rhiannon Watt restricted North’s Emma King, who dominated Geelong the previous week. Tyanna Smith’s goal and a behind late in the second term drew the Sainters within five points.
St Kilda started fairly strong in the third term, but Roos’ star Ellie Gavalas (17 touches) rose up after being paid a free kick after a WWE suplex-like tackle by Tarni White and slotted a goal, which sent North kicking away.
The Saints were paid a little more than double the number of free kicks than the Roos (22-10) and actually beat North in the inside 50 count, 27-25, but the Saints took only three marks the entire match inside their forward half.
Jasmine Garner’s soda from an uncontested mark on the goal line effectively sealed it for North. Jenna Bruton (23 touches) and Emma Kearney (22 touches) were the Roos’ leading ball-winners, while the Saints’ Georgia Patrikios led all players with 27 possessions and her teammate, Hannah Priest had a match-best nine tackles.
BRISBANE 10.5 (65) d GOLD COAST 0.2 (2)
No, the above scoreline isn’t a typo. You’re reading it exactly right. You may have heard the campy, Violent Femmes’ ‘80s classic pop tune, “Blister in the Sun,” but on Sunday, it was the Lions absolutely blistering the Suns in the second annual “Q Clash,” which last year ended in a draw, but this time ended with Gold Coast registering the lowest-ever final score in the AFLW’s five-year history.
Speaking of music, two Suns midfielders attending the bounce to start four-quarter time must be feeling lucky they’re not playing for former two-time Adelaide senior coach Bec Goddard. She and former Geelong AFLW captain Mel Hickey, both of whom were commentating for this match, could only stare in amazement — as even the most casual observer likely would — as two smiling Suns (Lauren Bella and Serene Watson) bobbed their heads and swayed to the beats of the music blaring from the loudspeakers, appearing more ready for clubbing than helping their club climb out of a 40-point crater.
An understandably stunned Goddard sternly said: “We all love a banger, don’t we, but I think I’d be locking on to what I’m about to do at this contest and focus on that.”
The Lions’ intensely focused tall forward Jess Wardlaw tore apart the Suns with four goals, to earn the Q Clash Medal, yet was so unselfish late in the match that instead of lining up to kick a possible fifth, she passed to Taylor Smith, hoping she’d nail her first AFLW goal. Smith kicked a behind, but in what amounted to a virtual light training run, that barely registered
Dakota Davidson kicked a bag of four goals, while Greta Bodey chipped in two, while Alexandra Anderson and Natalie Grider added 20 touches apiece.
Gold Coast, which actually made finals last year, so far have shriveled in decisive defeats, inspiring a slight alteration on lyrics from another ‘80s pop classic, in which 10,000 Maniacs frontwoman Natalie Merchant beautifully sang in “Like the Weather”: “Where on Earth have the Suns hid away?”
ADELAIDE 9.8 (62) d GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY 2.3 (15)
Turns out, neither a corked calf nor a COVID-19-induced isolation could stop the Crows’ Anne Hatchard from running out for this match.
She was thought to be an unlikely chance, coming off her injury, plus a two-week-old head knock in training, but there Hatchard was, minus her soft helmet and putting her stamp on an emphatic victory, getting 23 touches and kicking a goal.
And there was Ebony Marinoff, whose successful appeal against a three-round suspension for a tackle on the Giants’ Brid Stack, again running rampant with a team-high 24 possessions.
Danielle Ponter punished the Giants from the forward pocket with three goals from 13 touches. Her third and last goal was a work of art. Ponter pounced on a loose ball, executed a Dusty-esque fendoff on one opponent, then weaved through two more, and snapped truly.
Adelaide was far harder at the ball all day, winning the contested possessions by 26. Not that they needed additional help, but with a 15-8 margin, the Crows also were paid by the umpires nearly double the number of free kicks.
In the losing effort, the Giants’ Alyce Parker had a phenomenal performance, gathering a match-high 27 possessions, then late in the piece, kicking her first career AFLW goal.
Greater Western Sydney’s Tarni Evans may be in trouble for her sling tackle on Adelaide’s Aisling Considine, who may have suffered a concussion.
FREMANTLE 2.11 (23) d WEST COAST 2.2 (14)
This match, which in the end seemed more like a Dockers safe evacuation than a resounding victory, was played in a steady, soggy downpour, and capped a bizarre week out west.
Like the old James Taylor song, Perthites saw fire and they saw rain — and even endured some loneliness.
Residents already were in a mandatory five-day, COVID-19-induced lockdown when devastating bushfires raged around them.
For Eagles’ captain Emma Swanson and the Dockers’ Evie Gooch — both firefighters — it meant a more urgent call to active duty by their “other” employers.
For both clubs, it meant only being allowed one full squad training session by the Western Australian government, just two days before the hastily arranged Western Derby, and for fans, it meant no access to Fremantle Oval for the match.
As if all that wasn’t enough, an accidentally dropped, wayward knife in star Eagles’ midfielder Dana Hooker’s kitchen cost her the rest of the season, as it ruptured a tendon in her foot.
The off-field drama didn’t at all affect Dockers’ superstar Kiara Bowers’s performance, who collected 22 possessions, laid 14 tackles and kicked one of Freo’s two goals, en route to unanimously earning the AFLW Derby Medal for best on ground.
Gemma Houghton’s brilliant second term snap from across her body accounted for Freo’s other major, but while the Dockers dominated the contested possession count, the slippery conditions contributed to their getting little return from 35 forward 50 entries.
The Eagles were well and truly alive throughout the match, but Freo limited their forward progress throughout the second half.
West Coast’s Mikayla Bowen (18 touches), Belinda Smith (17 touches), Swanson (16 touches) got plenty of ball and ruck Parris Laurie was a force in the ruck, but the Eagles couldn’t soar above the purple haze.
