Add Category
Updated
This is the first year that preliminary finals have been part of the AFLW, after the first two seasons concluded simply with a grand final between the two top-placed teams.
Thanks to the newly introduced conference system — and a dominant Conference A having won 12 of 14 games against Conference B teams this season — the scene was set for two lopsided contests.
The team to beat
Such an anticipated walkover may not have eventuated in the case of the Blues' upset victory over Fremantle, but Adelaide's thumping victory over Geelong — by the second-highest winning margin in AFLW history — was exactly the one-sided rout head office would have feared.
The Crows have been the team to beat all season, but there's little doubt the Kangaroos (who lost just two games for the season) would have posed a bigger threat to Adelaide than the fledgling Cats.
The Kangaroos finished their inaugural season with four wins (20 points) and a percentage of 123.1, while Geelong won just three games with a percentage of 65.5 — but it was the Cats who won the right to play finals.
That injustice was reflected in a match in which it took until 12 minutes into the final term for the Cats to score at all.
Were the Dockers robbed of a home final?
By admission of Fremantle's coach Trent Cooper, the Dockers were "completely outplayed" in the preliminary final against Carlton, and the Blues were deserving winners.
But, after a season in which Fremantle lost only to premiership favourites Adelaide, the Dockers surely deserved the right to host the game. The WA side was unbeaten at home in 2019, while the Princes Park crowd undoubtedly lifted Carlton after a week of turmoil for star forward Tayla Harris.
Under the controversial conference system, Carlton was awarded the right to host the match after finishing on top of Conference B, while the Dockers finished second in Conference A. Fremantle, however, won two more games than Carlton, and had a far superior percentage (141.2 per cent to the Blues' 99.6 per cent).
If the AFL is to persist with the conference system — against the will of most fans and players — it must look at giving the team that finishes with more wins and a higher percentage the right to host the final, even if they finish lower on their own conference ladder.
This is particularly critical for interstate teams like Fremantle, who had to travel across the Nullabor for the game, with a large casualty ward.
Indeed, the Dockers may have struggled to field a side had they made it to the grand final anyway: star midfielder Dana Hooker needed a pain-killing injection to the sternum before the game, while captain Kara Donnellan was withdrawn after bravely playing out a virtual elimination final against the Kangaroos in the final round of the regular season with a quad injury and knee soreness.
Harris rises to the occasion
Harris put an extraordinary week behind her in the best possible fashion on Saturday: by letting her footy do the talking.
She was at her pack-crashing best against Fremantle, taking soaring contested grabs and slotting Carlton's first goal from 45 metres with her trademark follow-through.
It was the strongest possible statement from a woman still just 21 years old.
After the game, a candid Harris said she had been "opportunistic" about letting the drama of the week work in the club's favour.
"I saw what had happened as an opportunity for change, [but also] as momentum to go into the game," she said in the post-match press conference.
In the lead-up to the game, the AFL also sought to capitalise on the strength of public support for Harris and women's football more broadly. Its social media team went into overdrive, changing their logo to the Harris silhouette, creating a wallpaper of the same image and handing out badges to the first 1,000 at the game.
"The support I received [after being trolled] was incredible," Harris said.
"It was an exciting week. Initially it was a negative thing but turned into a huge positive."
What scoring problem?
Speaking of trolls, there's nothing they love more than claiming AFLW is low-scoring — and the AFL threw a bone to those detractors in season two when its infamous memo asking coaches to play a more "attractive" brand of football was leaked.
In season three, however, it is hard to level those same criticisms. On Saturday, Carlton's AFLW team scored 9.10 (64), and its men's team posted exactly the same score against Richmond on Thursday night.
The Adelaide women's team, meanwhile, well outscored their men's side's 7.13 (55), and surpassed the Carlton, Collingwood, Geelong, Melbourne, Sydney, West Coast, Essendon and North Melbourne men's teams in the process.
That impressive feat comes despite the fact AFLW games have only 15-minute quarters plus time-on added for the last two minutes, while men's games are 20 minutes long plus time-on for the whole quarter.
That means AFLW games are on average only a touch over half the length of men's games.
The increased scoring in 2019 is owed to a range of factors, including the AFL's bevy of rule changes (most of which are also being implemented in the men's competition).
Most importantly, however, this season has seen the debut of a group of women who have been able to play their entire careers in the AFL system for the first time. This includes gun Carlton midfielder Maddie Prespakis, favourite for the Rising Star and a member of the 2019 AFLW All Australian squad.
Will the grand final be a better contest?
The Crows team lobbied hard for their chance to play on the hallowed turf of Adelaide Oval and a crowd of 13,429 was an excellent show of support for the home team and women's football more broadly.
With Norwood Oval under construction, that number would not have fit at the Crows' usual home ground, nor the alternative at Unley Oval (capacity 10,000).
Presumably, the grand final will draw an even bigger crowd, with South Australians increasingly getting behind a team that won the inaugural AFLW premiership and has a serious chance at another flag in season three.
On paper, the Crows should get the job done easily.
But when these sides matched up in round two, the Blues took a 17-point lead into the third quarter, and their confidence will be sky high on Sunday after a backs-to-the-wall victory against the Dockers.
After their surprise victory on Saturday, Carlton coach Daniel Harford joked that his team had been seen as "that Conference B crap team that can't play", before adding that he didn't think the Blues would be underestimated again.
After it took kicking six of the last seven goals to overcome the Blues in round two, the Crows have first-hand experience of how tough a match-up Carlton is.
They won't underestimate them, and nor should they.
Dr Kate O'Halloran is host of Kick Like a Girl on AFLW radio and writes a weekly column on AFLW for the ABC.
Topics: sport, australian-football-league, australia
First posted