North Melbourne players get around Alice O’Loughlin after her goal in the Roos’ win over Melbourne. Photo: AFL MEDIA

FIRST QUALIFYING FINAL
ADELAIDE 5.7 (37) def by BRISBANE 6.3 (39)
Behold the power of Kryptonite. It’s a figment of comic book imagination, but after their qualifying final loss, the Crows must be feeling it’s indeed real, in the form of the Lions — the only AFLW club to have a winning record against them. Brisbane’s two-point win over the three-time premier Crows was its eighth in 11 meetings since the inaugural 2017 season. Adelaide’s loss — which locks in a home semi-final next week against Sydney — spoiled some of its players’ spectacular heroics. Ebony Marinoff and Anne Hatchard each had 25 possessions and seven clearances. Eloise Jones played arguably the match of her career, setting a new AFLW record for most goals (four) in a final — which hours later would be matched by Gold Coast’s Tara Bohanna. Adelaide’s Niamh Kelly couldn’t have ended the first half in more thrilling fashion, producing one of the goals of the year by evading three defenders and snapping truly across her body — as the siren went, no less — to catapult the Crows to a three-point lead at the major break. But late in the third term, after Jones booted her fourth goal (her side’s fourth straight of the match), showing off her wheels in burning off a defender in the pocket, that mysterious, power-sapping green mineral from planet Krypton seemed to be growing on the Norwood Oval deck. With the Crows up by 11 points, Lion Dakota Davidson strongly marked outside her attacking 50 — but a Crow getting pinged by the umpire for encroaching the protected zone put the goalkicker in the square and she easily converted her second major of the day. Then, with just a minute to go before three-quarter time and the Lions ramping up the pressure, Brisbane winger Orla O’Dwyer tied the scores with her second goal of the match, snapping truly while being tackled. Still don’t believe in the power of Kryptonite? Then how else can one explain Brisbane superstar Ally Anderson (team-high 17 disposals) who had previously kicked 0.5 for the entire season, finding the ball, running into an open goal, then blasting it home for the match-winner? In the dying minutes, the Crows had one last gasp at snatching victory, but the Lions rushed a minor score. Brisbane now hosts a preliminary final in two weeks against the winner of the Melbourne-Geelong semi-final.

FIRST ELIMINATION FINAL
GOLD COAST 6.5 (41) def by SYDNEY 9.4 (58)
Night quickly darkened on the Suns’ quick rise up the AFLW ladder and on their first finals campaign since 2020, as the Swans made Gold Coast’s flag chances melt into the horizon. Sydney, last season’s winless wooden spooner, has earned a trip to Adelaide next weekend to face the Crows in a semi-final. Gold Coast’s Tara Bohanna fired the match’s opening salvo 64 seconds in with the first of her equal record four goals in a final — a feat Adelaide’s Eloise Jones set hours earlier in the Crows’ qualifying final loss to Brisbane — but Sydney co-captains Chloe Molloy and Lucy McEvoy helped fuel a first term scoring barrage that propelled the Swans to a 20-point quarter time lead. While it was hardly surprising for Molloy — the Swans’ leading goalkicker with 14 — to hit the scoreboard, McEvoy, normally a defender, shocked the Suns by booting two in the first term after having kicked only one all season. Swans’ prolific ball-winner Laura Gardiner proved a massive headache, breaking Suns’ Lucy Single’s tag. Single last week handcuffed Essendon’s Madison Prespakis, but in this match, she couldn’t lay a glove on Gardiner, who turned in one of her best performances of the season, amassing 30 possessions, laying 10 tackles, and winning seven clearances. Sofia Hurley (17 disposals and 16 tackles) and Tanya Kennedy (22 touches, 10 tackles, and six inside 50s) added physicality with their tackling and helped deny the Suns’ access to the wings, where they like to execute their fast-moving game style. The Swans opened a 26-point edge at the major break, and even after the Suns’ Bohanna opened each of the first three quarters with goals, Sydney quickly replied with majors of their own. The Suns won the inside 50 count but took only four marks in their attacking zone compared to Sydney’s eight, and couldn’t make the scoreboard impact they sorely needed.

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SECOND ELIMINATION FINAL
GEELONG 7.9 (51) def ESSENDON 5.3 (33)
In their heartbreaking finals loss last season to North Melbourne, the Cats kicked just 14 points for the match. This year, in Geelong’s 18-point victory over the Bombers, with ball magnet and clearance machine Georgie Prespakis directing one-way traffic, it took the Cats just over six minutes to surpass that output, with Aishling Moloney, Jacqui Parry, and their goalkicking leader Chloe Scheer all kicking majors. Geelong’s victory, in which the scoreboard greatly flattered Essendon, ensures it a semi-final showdown next week against Melbourne, which was defeated by North Melbourne in the second qualifying final. The Cats’ first-term ambush, which saw them bolt to a 21-point lead at the first change, turned into an absolute onslaught by half-time, with midfielders Amy McDonald (21 touches and a goal) and Nina Morrison (20 touches and five clearances) winning their share of ball and helping Geelong expand its buffer to 36 points by the major break. With 23 touches, nine clearances, and a goal on the day, Georgie Prespakis won sibling bragging rights against her older sister Madison, who kicked two goals and had 20 touches for the Bombers. After missing two shots at goal, Essendon’s leading goalkicker Bonnie Toogood converted a set shot late in the final term, but by then it was far too little too late to take a run at the Cats, who had well and truly put the cue in the rack. The only blemish on Geelong’s victory could significantly impact its flag hopes — Scheer was forced to leave the match after the first term with a shoulder injury and her availability for next week’s semi-final is in doubt.

SECOND QUALIFYING FINAL
MELBOURNE 1.3 (9) def by NORTH MELBOURNE 7.8 (50)
After losing all three matches this season against the “big three”, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Adelaide, the Kangaroos broke through at the best possible time, smashing the reigning premier by 41 points and earning a home preliminary final against the winner of next week’s Adelaide-Sydney semi-final. Melbourne is the AFLW’s highest scoring team and came into this match having beaten North Melbourne six times in seven matches, including a 23-point win in Round 8. In this contest, though, from the opening bounce the Demons looked uncharacteristically stale, disorganised, and when the Kangaroos brought heavy pressure on ball carriers, fumbly and flummoxed. Tahlia Randall, who had previously kicked only one goal against Melbourne, kicked three on Demons’ defender Libby Burch. North Melbourne peppered the goals in the first term but sprayed four shots for behinds. While Randall booted her second major in the second term, the Roos — No.1 for defence in the competition – held Melbourne to a solitary point at half-time and went into the major break with a 15-point advantage. One couldn’t blame an observer of either of these teams this season for thinking that a Melbourne fightback would come, but it never did. Melbourne didn’t kick its first goal until Alyssa Bannan nailed a set shot nine minutes into the final term. North Melbourne starved the Demons of the ball for the first half and in the second they silenced spearheads Kate Hore and Eden Zanker. Demons’ coach Mick Stinear shuffled the magnets to start the second half, moving Tayla Harris from the forward line to the midfield, but it was to no avail. Kangaroo Jasmine Garner, recently crowned a third time as AFLCA Player of the Year, had a sensational day with 25 possessions, 12 tackles, and six inside 50s, while Emma Kearney pitched in with 22 possessions and nine tackles own. Up forward, Randall dented the scoreboard with three goals, she and Kate Shierlaw with six score involvements each. Demons Hore (16 possessions, 10 tackles) and Olivia Purcell (24 touches, seven tackles, six clearances) can hold their heads high, but Melbourne, which will host a semi-final next week against Geelong, now has the hardest possible road to defend its premiership.