Teah Charlton’s final goal puts the exclamation mark on Adelaide’s win over Collingwood on Sunday. Photo: AFL MEDIA

After a thrilling weekend in which the top six finals-bound clubs battled each other, with no match decided by more than 14 points, Adelaide has put itself in the box seat for the 2021 AFLW premiership.

The Crows, Brisbane and Collingwood all finished with 7-2 win-loss records, but Adelaide’s tremendous win at home over the Magpies catapulted it to top spot for the first time all season, 13 per cent ahead of Brisbane, which fell to second after its nail-biting loss to Melbourne.

Adelaide and Brisbane will both have a week off as the four teams below them do battle in knockout finals next week, before hosting preliminary finals, but it’s the Crows who have now earned grand final hosting rights should both win.

Collingwood and Fremantle were the big losers out of the weekend, the Magpies, after occupying double chance territory all season, sliding down to third and the prospect of elimination should they lose to the Kangaroos next week. Melbourne clinched third position with its fourth straight win and enters finals as the competition’s hottest side. But the Dockers, having now lost their last two matches, will have to knock over the Demons away from home after having looked likely to host finals all season.

WESTERN BULLDOGS 7.3 (45) d RICHMOND 5.2 (32)
Some players win matches off their own boot, but on Friday night, the Bulldogs’ Ellie Blackburn (20 touches, six tackles) sealed this one off her own work rate. With just under three minutes left in the match, the Tigers were mounting a grandstand finish after Courtney Wakefield brought her side within seven points. Enter Blackburn: She won a crucial clearance at the resultant centre bounce, then executed two effective kicks into attack – the second, after receiving a handball while sprinting, set up Bonnie Toogood to snap the winner. Still, almost immediately afterward, the Tigers should have won a free kick from point blank range with one minute 25 seconds remaining after Kirsten McLeod stepped over Ellie McKenzie’s mark just beyond the arc. Instead, the Dogs’ tough defence repelled a final attack. Brooke Lochland and Kirsty Lamb (23 touches each) were the Bulldogs’ most prolific ball winners, while Elisabeth Georgiostathis limited the Tigers’ Monique Conti to just 12 possessions. In defeat, Richmond captain Katie Brennan finished a ripping year in front of goal with three majors, kicking 14.7 for the season, after starting it 0.5.

NORTH MELBOURNE 4.6 (30) d FREMANTLE 4.5 (29)
With their finals hopes dependent on a win, the Kangaroos rallied from a three-quarter time, five-point deficit to claim victory, earning an elimination final berth next week against Collingwood. Daisy Bateman’s match-winning set-shot for North, late in the final term, wasn’t without controversy. With about six-and-a-half minutes left, the umpires paid Bateman a free kick deep in the Roos’ forward 50 for a questionable push in the back against Fremantle defender Janelle Cuthbertson during a marking contest. Bateman converted the resultant set-shot, giving North a three-point advantage. The Dockers, though, enjoyed a 22-7 free kick advantage and could only blame themselves for managing just two behinds the rest of the match. Worse, Fremantle for the seventh time in nine matches failed to kick a first-term goal. By contrast, the Roos’ Sophie Abbatangelo wasted no time getting her side on the scoreboard with a checkside snap within the first minute of play. Despite playing without suspended midfield ace Jenna Bruton, North’s engine room reigned supreme. Ashleigh Riddell (33 touches) had a disposal bonanza, while Jasmine Garner added 25 touches and a goal, and Emma Kearney raked in 24 touches. For the Dockers – who sank to fifth on the ladder and now must return next week to Melbourne for a cut-throat final against the Demons – unheralded duo Tiah Haynes and Stephanie Cain starred, gathering 14 possessions each, while Kiara Bowers (19 touches, seven tackles, and a goal) added to her claim for the league’s best and fairest award.

MELBOURNE 6.2 (38) d BRISBANE 6.0 (36)
On a schizophrenic weather afternoon at Casey Fields, in which Christine Anu’s old hit, “Sunshine on a Rainy Day,” would have provided an appropriate soundtrack, the Dees capped an awe-inspiring run to the finals, grittily besting top-rung Brisbane with a come-from-behind, 13-point, final term uprising. The Demons’ win locks in a home elimination final date next week with Fremantle. At three-quarter time, the Lions – with an 11-point lead and the Dees’ inspirational leader Daisy Pearce on the bench wearing an immobilizing brace on her right knee after copping an injury just two minutes into the match – looked for all the world like the side that would end the Dees’ home unbeaten streak. But Melbourne’s Alyssa Bannan’s line-breaking run and carry and final term goal preceded teammate Tayla Hanks’s go-ahead checkside snap. Melbourne then put on a masterclass in team defence, holding Brisbane scoreless, inducing the Lions into 13 costly turnovers. Eden Zanker (25 touches — 14 in the first term – and four tackles) was sensational for the Dees, as were teammates Maddie Gay (17 touches, three tackles) and Lily Mithen (23 touches, four tackles). Kate Hore, such a goal-kicking force, helped out down back with a huge mark at a crucial time, and Gabby Colvin, who had just one touch on the day, contributed a crucial spoil. Melbourne’s Shelley Scott assumed Hore’s goalkicking heroics, booting three majors. Unfortunately for Pearce, though, she is highly unlikely to feature in next week’s cut-throat final against Fremantle.

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GEELONG 6.5 (41) d GOLD COAST 3.6 (24)
The result was sealed, and the Suns “winning” the wooden spoon a fait accompli, yet the Cats saved their season’s best for the final siren: Rebecca Webster’s snap put an exclamation mark on a 17-point win – their only one for 2021. Webster’s teammates mobbed her, celebrating ending eight rounds of excruciating growing pains. Gold Coast only had a brief sniff, trailing by a goal in the third term, as Geelong went on to kick its biggest score of the season. Laura Gardiner (18 touches, seven tackles) was the Cats’ best and teammate Rocky Cranston got great purchase for her 10 touches, booting two goals. Kalinda Howarth kicked two of Gold Coast’s three majors, while ruck Lauren Bella registered one of the season’s oddest stat lines: a dominant 32 hit-outs – and two disposals. Geelong ends its 2021 strongly, but Gold Coast concludes its campaign with the ignominy of historic, single-match futility: lowest-ever score (two points in round two) and highest-ever points conceded (87 in round eight).

ADELAIDE 4.7 (31) d COLLINGWOOD 2.5 (17)
Footy club slogans are often more hyperbole than truth, but on Sunday, the Crows truly flew as one, dispatching the Magpies to capture the minor premiership. All afternoon, Adelaide defenders used Norwood Oval’s narrow dimensions to ratchet up pressure on Collingwood’s ball carriers and successfully choke off its vaunted handball chains, forcing the Pies to bomb long and hope into their attack zone to no avail. The Crows held the Pies scoreless in the second term and limited them to just one point in the third. Adelaide’s Anne Hatchard, who garnered 22 possessions, took six marks and kicked a goal, was seemingly everywhere, while plenty of Pies will be sore from Crows’ tackling tandem, sisters Rachelle Martin and Hannah Button, who laid 10 and nine, respectively. Collingwood’s “big three” midfielders Brianna Davey, Jaimee Lambert (23 touches each), and Britt Bonnici (22 touches) won plenty of ball, but struggled to get it into the forward line. At half time, Collingwood’s forwards had mustered just eight touches and one shot at goal. Lambert herself kicked the Pies’ first major in the opening term, answering the Crows’ Justine Mules’s opening salvo, but Adelaide’s Ashleigh Woodland’s creativity netted two more goals. Woodland bobbed and weaved through traffic to snap one, then set up a Hatchard snap by handballing to her after a Houdini-like escape from a tackle. Teah Charlton closed out Adelaide’s scoring by one-upping Woodland’s fancy footwork, shaking off one defender and dribbling a goal through another’s legs.

CARLTON 4.8 (32) d GWS 4.7 (31)
Footy clubs aren’t one-woman shows, but after this match, one would be hard-pressed to dispute that the Blues’ Darcy Vescio single-handedly won it. No disrespect to her hard-working teammates, especially Maddie Prespakis who gathered 27 possessions and laid three tackles, or Kerryn Herrington who again commanded the backline with 20 touches, but Vescio not only booted two goals to win her second AFLW goalkicking title, but she took two match-saving marks in the goal square in the last two minutes to preserve the Blues’ narrowest of wins. The Giants’ Tait Mackrill, who kicked two goals, kicked one of her side’s potential match-winners. Cora Staunton, the Giants’ leading goalkicker, added two more from six shots. Rebecca Beeson and Alyce Parker, Greater Western Sydney’s dynamic ball-winning duo, were busy all day, each racking up 26 possessions, as GWS launched wave after wave of attacks inside their forward end in the final term, but couldn’t get over the line. The Blues’ win was a sweet send-off for retiring players Katie Loynes and Alison Downie, who were chaired off the ground by their teammates after the final siren.

ST KILDA 11.10 (76) d WEST COAST 3.2 (20)
Finally, the Saints connected with the G-Train early and rode it to victory. Last year’s AFLW leading goalkicker Caitlin Greiser has mostly been grounded this season because of the Saints’ inability to penetrate their attacking zone. But not on Sunday. Greiser converted two of four scoring shots for majors before half-time and Jessica Matin added two, as St Kilda amassed 41 inside 50s en route to a 56-point smashing. Georgia Patrikios booted a goal from her 30 touches, with Tyanna Smith right behind her in the possession count with 24, plus a goal. The Eagles won the first quarter on the back of Melissa Caulfield and Grace Kelly goals, and Mikayla Bowen amassed 22 touches and five tackles, but West Coast couldn’t run with the Saints, who reeled off 26 unanswered points to bolt to a 22-point half-time lead and eventually reach their highest score of the season.