Mia King drives the Roos forward during their impressive win over Carlton on Sunday. Photo: AFL MEDIA
After a round in which COVID-19 chaos forced AFLW top brass to postpone one match, reorganise five of six others and try to sort out four underdone clubs with varying degrees of inactivity and isolation, the sports scientists would be baffled.
Fremantle, which logically should have been fatigued after only a four-day break, instead ran roughshod over a more-rested Collingwood.
Brisbane, coming off three days’ rest, was energetic early, but faded badly, barely holding on for its win over a constantly-improving Geelong side piling up honourable defeats, while the Western Bulldogs, playing a match for the first time in 20 days, collectively looked as rusty as an old screen door.
Carlton had barely a drop of petrol left in its tank after an early-week match against Brisbane, an ensuing wee hours flight back to Victoria then a four-day break. And in a battle of undefeated sides, Adelaide thumped Melbourne to end the round on top of the ladder.
Fatigue, meanwhile, means absolutely nothing to Richmond’s Tessa Lavey. Within a 24-hour span, she played 33 minutes of her WNBL Bendigo Spirit team’s match against the Perth Lynx, scoring a team-high 16 points, then flew across the country to Queensland to kick a goal against Gold Coast.
FREMANTLE 5.8 (38) d COLLINGWOOD 1.1 (7)
Anyone wondering about the Dockers’ freshness on a short rest after the league moved this match by three days got their answer immediately after the final siren. That’s when, to the delight of her teammates huddling up to belt out the club song, Emma O’Driscoll zoomed past like a fighter jet and launched into a full-on impression of multiple Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Simone Biles, sprinting, then somersaulting and back-flipping in celebration. Oh, and during the match, there also was the matter of Fremantle’s frenetic tackling pressure, which netted 18 — yes, 18 — frees for Pies’ players holding the ball. Still, by three-quarter time, Collingwood’s backline was bending, not breaking, withstanding Fremantle’s unending advances, and keeping its scoreboard deficit to two goals. But the Pies couldn’t go forward, recording just 10 inside 50s all match (against the Dockers’ 40), including only one in the second term. Collingwood forward Chloe Molloy touched the ball only twice all night, while the Dockers’ Irish import Aine Tighe (14 possessions, including 12 intercept marks) dominated Molloy’s tall teammate, Sabrina Frederick. As has become her custom, Docker Kiara Bowers had a game-high 26 disposals, while Hayley Miller added 19 of her own and snapped two captain’s goals — a second-term steadier, then the final-term sealer.
GREATER WESTERN SYDNEY 7.1 (43) d WESTERN BULLDOGS 2.10 (22)
Some savvy magnet moving helped the Giants move mountains in their first home game this season. With a revamped attack, GWS belted a wasteful opponent coming off a three-week match hiatus. Five Giants were ruled out this round, with COVID-19 health and safety protocols sidelining four key Giants — two midfielders and one linchpin each, in the forward line and in defence — while midfielder Haneen Zreika opted out, citing religious reasons for declining to wear her club’s Pride Round jumper. Enter two Giant defenders — Nicola Barr and Louise Stephenson — redeployed to the forward line. Before this match, Barr had played in 33 previous AFLW matches and never kicked a goal. By the final siren, she had three to her name. In fact, Barr opened the Giants account by pouncing on a crumb and snapping truly. Stephenson, meanwhile, who had kicked only one goal in 28 previous matches, showed off a sublime left boot in the first quarter with two majors — first converting a set shot, then hitting the scoreboard with a snap of her own, winning the ball after a chase, then selling candy to an opponent. For the Giants, Cora Staunton — who added a second-term goal — had too often been their only avenue to goal, making the new Barr-Stephenson forward tandem scream out for permanent implementation. Alyce Parker (20 touches), and captain Alicia Eva (13 touches) gave the forwards plenty of supply, while first-year player Emily Pease (15 possessions) helped the defence repel Bulldog forays into their own end. But despite their 33 inside 50s to the Giants’ 21, the Dogs’ shocking scoreline exposed their attack as far more bark than bite. Only captain Ellie Blackburn and Richelle Cranston converted chances in front of goal. One must wonder how much the lack of opportunity to consistently train during their isolation affected the Dogs’ showing.
ADELAIDE 4.11 (35) d MELBOURNE 3.3 (21)
The Crows remained unbeaten and atop the ladder, winning comfortably by 14 points, but the larger story is their captain, Chelsea Randall, reinjuring her hamstring early in the second term and watching the rest of the match from the bench. Randall passed a fitness the test the night before the match, but badly tweaked it while playing in her side’s stingy backline — anchored by Sarah Allan — which conceded all three Dees’ goals in the final term, from a paltry 11 forward 50 entries. As for the Crows’ attack, it commenced just two minutes into play, when superstar Erin Phillips seized on a crumb from a crashed pack and snapped home a major. Being typically modest, Phillips told a TV reporter in a pre-match interview after being asked whether she or Dees’ rival Daisy Pearce would kick more goals on the day, “it would be better if Ash Woodland did.” Instead, Phillips kicked three — to wrest the AFLW’s all-time goalkicking tally from the Blues’ Darcy Vescio — to Pearce’s two, while Dees held Woodland goalless for the first time this season. Randall, then Allan, handcuffed Dees’ forward Tayla Harris, who kicked a goal, but managed only six touches. Eliza McNamara (22 possessions) and Tyla Hanks (20 possessions) worked hard to win the ball for Melbourne, but couldn’t outdo Adelaide’s dynamic duo of Anne Hatchard (29 disposals) and Ebony Marinoff (26 disposals), whose booming left boot seemed to accompany every Crows’ forward flight.
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BRISBANE 3.9 (27) d GEELONG 4.1 (25)
In a frenetic fourth quarter, all signs at Maroochydore — even from the heavens themselves — were pointing toward a massive Cats’ upset of the reigning premiers. As a rainbow highlighted dark grey skies after a brief, tropical drizzle, the Cats’ Chloe Scheer lined up for goal from a third straight final quarter free kick the umpires paid her, with a chance to put her side in front. Scheer had converted the previous two, but her third attempt missed the mark for a minor score. Brisbane exhaled a collective sigh of relief from that let off, but the Cats pressed on until the final siren, at which Lions’ forward Jess Wardlaw — pressed into emergency duty in the backline — took an intercept mark on the chest inside Geelong’s forward 50. The Lions paraded the 2021 premiership cup around the ground and unfurled their accompanying flag before the match and were buoyed by the shock return of goalkicking star forward Dakota Davidson, whose foot injury in Round 1 had kept her out of action. Davidson made her presence felt early in the second term by kicking a goal that helped put her side up by four points at the major break. Brisbane vice-captain Emily Bates (24 touches and a goal) and Orla O’Dwyer (14 possessions and 432 metres gained) were sensational, but Scheer (three goals), Amy McDonald (20 touches), Rebecca Webster (19 touches) led a determined, never discouraged Cats’ side that fought to within a whisker of victory.
NORTH MELBOURNE 7.9 (51) d CARLTON 3.3 (21)
The Blues are known for being fast movers on the field, but in this five-goal North Melbourne romp, the Roos turned the corridor into the autobahn, speeding through it like Formula One racers to relentlessly attack — and leave mired in the dust — a Carlton side which looked to be running on fumes after a four-day break. North’s Ashleigh Riddell did her chances of winning the AFLW 2022 best-and-fairest no harm with her game-high 30 touches, while Jenna Bruton gathering 28, and Mia King contributing 25. Daria Bannister, North’s tough-nut small forward, showed a tireless work rate. Her laying tackles and winning free kicks in her side’s half resulted in two goals, one of them a beauty from the boundary line. Alice O’Loughlin also benefitted from the forward pressure, and she kicked her first two AFLW goals within minutes of each other in the final term. Carlton superstar Darcy Vescio has struggled this year from the extra attention opponents are paying them, but they snapped their first goal of the season in the second quarter. Still, they got only seven touches for the match, while the fatigued Blues managed just a score of 1.1 after the main break, to North’s 4.5.
GOLD COAST 5.9 (39) def RICHMOND 5.4 (34)
Supremacy in this nail-biter swung like a pendulum from one side to the other until the two-minute mark of the final term, when Tigers’ captain Katie Brennan fired a shot toward goal that would have given her side a one-point lead — only to have it touched on the line by a Suns’ defender. Gold Coast has now achieved two wins on the trot and sits seventh on the ladder. Alison Drennan racked up 27 possessions and Tara Bohanna continued her deadeye form, booting two goals after her three in the final term last week. Mon Conti, with 21 touches and five tackles, and Kate Dempsey (20 touches and a goal) were the Tigers’ main drivers, along with Brennan, who extended her streak of kicking at least one goal in match to 10 by booting two in this one. In the end, though, the Suns created more than twice the number of scoring opportunities, winning the inside 50 count 40 to 19.
