North Melbourne’s Emma King is ecstatic as the siren heralds the Roos’ one-point win over Adelaide. Photo: AFL MEDIA

FIRST PRELIMINARY FINAL
BRISBANE 6.2 (38) def GEELONG 5.4 (34)

While Lions’ supporters revel in the result of this epic, four-point thriller that propels their team into a fifth AFLW grand final and might call it fate or destiny, Cats’ fans are yowling about what might’ve been, after several questionable umpiring decisions at crucial moments went against their side. More on that later. Meanwhile, irony took centre stage in the plot at the end of the third term and in the dying minutes of the fourth. Brisbane key forward Dakota Davidson, who kicked two goals on the night, went down awkwardly on the three-quarter time siren while tackling Geelong’s Meghan McDonald, ending her night with a knee injury and putting her in doubt for the grand final. Brisbane coach Craig Starcevich swung defender Shannon Campbell forward to replace Davidson, and it was Campbell who worked herself free near the goal square to take a sliding, contested mark and slot what proved the match-winner. It was also somehow fitting. The inaugural Lion opened the club’s account in 2017, booting the first major in the club’s existence, and last season took home the medal for best on ground in their grand final loss. Courtney Hodder soccered through a goal from the square in the match’s opening minute, which the Cats’ Mikayla Bowen insisted to the umpire she touched on its way through. In the dying minutes of the opening term, Brisbane struck again — albeit questionably. Lion Charlotte Mullins snapped truly after pouncing on a handball from Mikayla Pauga, but only after Cat Claudia Gunjaca locked Pauga in a tackle that seemed to last an eternity. But the umpire didn’t reward Gunjaca. In the second and last terms, the lead changed five times, with the Lions holding a four-point half time edge and a four-point buffer at three-quarter time. Isabel Dawes (21 touches, 14 tackles, and eight clearances) and Orla O’Dwyer (21 touches, a goal, and 560 metres gained) were stars for Brisbane, while teammate Cathy Svarc handcuffed Cats’ star mid Amy McDonald in the first half. But Geelong’s Georgie Prespakis (21 possessions, six clearances, and four tackles), Nina Morrison (20, nine, and four) Jacqui Parry (two vital second quarter goals), Chloe Scheer (one goal), and Gunjaca (nine intercept possessions) kept the Cats well and truly in the contest. Geelong’s Aishling Moloney crumbed a go-ahead goal early in the final term, but Campbell’s major snatched back the lead for Brisbane with just under seven minutes left. Then, with just over 30 seconds left on the clock, controversy again surfaced. Prespakis’s tackle on Lions’ star Ally Anderson on centre wing certainly appeared to merit the umpire pinging Anderson for holding the ball, but the umpire called play on. With Prespakis’s prodigious kick, it’s highly likely she would have kicked deep into attack, where who knows what could have transpired. The unpaid free drew the ire of Geelong men’s star Patrick Dangerfield, who posted his displeasure on social media.

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SECOND PRELIMINARY FINAL
NORTH MELBOURNE 4.8 (32) def ADELAIDE 4.7 (31)

From the club that until three weeks ago couldn’t beat “the big three” AFLW powerhouses — Melbourne, Brisbane, and Adelaide — the Kangaroos are now grand final hosts after vanquishing the Demons two weeks ago in a qualifying final and on Sunday doggedly holding off the Crows by a solitary point in a manic arm-wrestle of a prelim. It was North Melbourne’s first win over Adelaide since 2020 and puts the Roos into their first season decider. While Roos’ tall Tahlia Randall marked strongly all match and provided crucial firepower with two goals in this low-scoring affair, her teammate Jenna Bruton inspirationally took the match by the scruff of the neck and made it her own in the third term with an astonishing workrate which saw her accumulate 13 of her 28 possessions (13 contested). For good measure, Bruton laid seven tackles and had five clearances. Adelaide’s Danielle Ponter, meanwhile, threatened to win the match off her own boot, kicking three of her side’s four majors, including two in the third term. North Melbourne survived both its own wastefulness in the final term, missing four shots at goal, and also late-game heroics by the Crows’ Anne Hatchard, who took a mark of the year contender, flying high in the goal square to reel in a mark, then convert to make it a one-point contest with just under three minutes left to play. North Melbourne midfield ace Ash Riddell was prolific with 25 touches, while AFL Coaches Association Player of the Year Jasmine Garner worked her magic with a goal and five clearances from her 25 possessions. The Kangaroos’ backline, so impenetrable all year in conceding the competition’s fewest points, again stood up, repelling attacks with excellent positioning and effective rebounding. With North Melbourne getting revenge on both the Demons, and Crows, the Roos now have Brisbane — whom they’ve never beaten and to whom they lost a heartbreaker in round four — firmly in their sights in the grand final, to be played on Sunday at Ikon Park at 2.30pm.