Brisbane star Courtney Hodder gets a handball away in the Lions’ win against Fremantle last week. Photo: GETTY IMAGES
Novelty acts and old rivalries take shape this weekend across the AFLW landscape.
Three new expansion clubs — Hawthorn, Essendon, and Port Adelaide — are scheduled to make their home debuts, while the Demons and Kangaroos face off in a Friday twilight curtain raiser at the MCG, preceding the Melbourne-Sydney AFL qualifying final.
Last season’s premier Adelaide looks to right itself after a Round 1 defeat against runner-up Melbourne, which hopes to build momentum after its upset win.
MELBOURNE v NORTH MELBOURNE (MCG, Friday 5pm local time)
The Demons last week capitalised on their motivation to avenge their grand final defeat and had multiple goalkickers in their victory over the Crows. The Kangaroos boast the competition’s best midfield, whose ball-winning and intense forward pressure was too much for Gold Coast. North’s tall target Tahlia Randall also booted a bag of three majors in that match. This round, the Roos will have their hands full as the Dees have an outstanding midfield of their own, led by Karen Paxman, and multiple avenues to goal, including Tayla Harris and Kate Hore. North won’t waste its own motivation to announce itself as a genuine premiership contender by taking a big scalp on footy’s biggest stage.
GIL TIPS: North Melbourne
RICHMOND v ADELAIDE (Swinburne Centre, Saturday 11.40am local time)
If the AFLW’s relatively short history tells fans anything, it’s that the Crows play beautifully when they’re angry. After dropping one on their home soil last week to the club they defeated in last season’s grand final, expect the Crows to be livid. The Tigers, who managed only a solitary goal last round without goal-kicking skipper Katie Brennan and dropped a heartbreaker to Geelong in the dying seconds, are squarely in Adelaide’s crosshairs. Brennan remains on the sidelines and with physicality being a defining characteristic of the Crows’ game, the Tigers are likely to come away sore and licking their wounds in what threatens to be an almighty belting.
GIL TIPS: Adelaide
PORT ADELAIDE v WESTERN BULLDOGS, (Adelaide Oval, Saturday 1.10pm local time)
The Power take centre stage in their maiden home match, coming off an inconsistent showing on a slippery deck out west that saw them fall to the Eagles, last season’s wooden spooners, while the Bulldogs toughed out a win over the Giants. Ellie Blackburn, the Dogs’ captain, knows how to rally her troops through difficult times, neatly steering them into a finals berth in the last campaign. Port management has gone the stockpiling established talent expansion club route, but that might take time for the club to gel. The forecast calls for some more growing pains for Port.
GIL TIPS: Western Bulldogs
FREMANTLE v GEELONG (Fremantle Oval, Saturday 11.40am local time)
The Cats are well and truly up and about after earning a miraculous opening round victory over the Tigers as Georgie Prespakis won the match off both her right and left boots, producing her side’s only two goals. The Dockers, missing Ebony Antonio and Kara Antonio through injury and all-time leading goalkicker Gemma Houghton and running winger Steph Cain through the exit door, matched the powerful Lions for the first quarter, then were walloped for the next three. Fremantle are even more banged up this week, losing intercept defender Janelle Cuthbertson (broken nose) and Jess Low (concussion) to friendly fire in the Lions clash, but just as the developing Tigers will be prey for the angry Crows, expect the Dockers to be inhospitable hosts to the young, cross-country traveling Cats.
GIL TIPS: Fremantle
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ESSENDON v CARLTON (ETU Stadium, Sunday 11.10am local time)
No other new AFLW club came out of the box last round as well as the Bombers did from their shiny black package and red sash and bow. Maddy Prespakis, AFLW 2020 best and fairest and three-time club champion for Carlton, was electric for Essendon, earning a full 10 AFLW Coaches Association votes with 26 disposals and a goal. Prespakis looked positively giddy last running out for the club she grew up barracking for and lines up this week, with teammate Georgia Gee, facing her old side, which since its 2020 semi-final victory, has underachieved. After a solid first half last week, the Blues capitulated to Collingwood without much of a fight. Fortunately for Carlton, Mimi Hill, last season’s Rising Star Award winner is expected to play, after suffering a corked quad. Still, the Blues are very vulnerable to an Essendon outfit keen to shine bright in its home debut.
GIL TIPS: Essendon
COLLINGWOOD v SYDNEY (Victoria Park Sunday 1.10pm local time)
The Pies should breeze in this contest, playing on their home soil against a very young Swans’ side that was blitzed last round by a St Kilda outfit infamous for its minimal scoring ammunition. Sydney dodged a proverbial bullet last round when its No. 1 draft pick Montana Ham went down with a knee injury — but it’s not an ACL injury, as at first feared, so she’s likely to miss a maximum four weeks. Pies’ star Jaimee Lambert, meanwhile, is a test to run out, after incurring an ankle injury.
GIL TIPS: Collingwood
GWS v BRISBANE (Manuka Oval 3.10pm Sunday local time)
The pride of Lions up forward, including Greta Bodey, Jesse Wardlaw, Courtney Hodder, and Dakota Davidson, is easily the AFLW’s best, and if they get even adequate supply from their talented midfield, they can put up big scores, as they did last round with a 49-point demolition of Fremantle. The Giants, conversely, have long been burdened with having only one reliable avenue to goal, the irrepressible Irishwoman Cora Staunton, who booted three last round, including her career 50th. Brisbane made an emphatic statement last week of its premiership credentials, which likely continues this week, in Canberra.
GIL TIPS: Brisbane
HAWTHORN v ST KILDA (Box Hill City Oval, 4.10pm Sunday local time)
The Saints of last round looked a completely different club than years past, moving the ball with ease and scoring at will. Problem was, that effort came against a squad, Sydney, running out for its first-ever match. The question this round is whether St Kilda can repeat its performance against the Hawks, who’ll be playing their first home match, and capitalise on Nic Xenos’s and Caitlin Greiser’s scoring potential. Though Saints’ old mate Tilly Lucas-Rodd — a clearance machine — will help give Hawthorn first use of the ball, they should be able to muster enough of the pill to spoil the Hawks’ housewarming party.
GIL TIPS: St Kilda
GOLD COAST v WEST COAST (Metricon Stadium, 5:10pm Sunday)
The last two seasons, the Suns have been enigmatic. They had a miserable 2021, only to dramatically turn things around to be in finals contention for eight of the 10 rounds of the first 2022 season. Then last week against North Melbourne, to kick off the new campaign, the Suns showed all the signs of being a side in regression instead of taking a forward step. The Eagles, though, looked like a club keen on shedding its wooden-spooner tag and showed plenty of the fight it lacked last season in overcoming a nine-point, three quarter time deficit to beat the Power, kicking away. The Eagles suffered a major blow last week when they lost goalkicker Kellie Gibson for the season with an ACL tear, but Irishwoman Aisling McCarthy fuelled the fightback with an early Goal of the Year candidate. In the previous season, the Suns seemed to come of age, rallying to defeat West Coast by 13 points in a thriller. The result may be close this time, but expect the Suns to prevail on their home deck.
GIL TIPS: Gold Coast
