IN a new weekly series here at Rookie Me Central, we are going to go around the league and hear from the coaches to see what they had to say post their respective matches on the weekend.

This week we are hearing from the four expansion club coaches, who all played their inaugural match last weekend.

The first of the debuting sides to play their first game was Port Adelaide, who went down to West Coast over in Perth.

Port Adelaide coach Lauren Arnell loved the support from Port fans in their debut game, and despite the loss certainly saw the positives in the game.

“We had amazing representation from the Port faithful today, we certainly felt that out there, so I guess nice to get some experience under the belt. We had eight debutants today, and we were 11 points up at three quarter time. So some positive signs, but also footy teaches you some pretty harsh lessons and if you don’t kind of stick to what we know we’re good at, we probably gave it away in that last quarter and we lost that game.”

“I think we do really learn some really positive lessons out of that, and it comes around composure, and just basics around what to do under pressure, which you can talk about all of preseason but until you’re in the heat of round one the lessons are more strongly learnt, and one thing I do know about our group is they’ll stick together and they’ll take plenty out of today.”

She was clear in where things went wrong for her side in the last quarter.

“We lost contested possession, and we gave away nine free kicks, and we also turned the ball over in positions where you’re pretty much asking to get scored against. So that will, nine free kicks in a quarter in W when quarters typically run about 17 minutes, it’s going to more then likely mean a loss.”

Up at North Sydney Oval Sydney were unable to get over the line against St Kilda, but upon later reflection Sydney coach Scott Gowans could see the positives out of the game.

“Yeah I think it’s a good point actually, because the emotion was certainly there next day. I think any coach will tell you, you always want to try and win, but on reflection and being able to look back and I think overall it was such a win for the club. Over 8,000 people at North Sydney Oval, you can’t beat that. Largest AFLW crowd in NSW so far, so I think on reflection I’m pretty comfortable with what we put out there. Lots and lots of improvement but like every coach you want to win, you kind of focus on the result probably a little bit too much in this case I think.”

Looking ahead to their Round 2 game against Collingwood, Gowans already has a plan for countering Collingwood’s territory game dominance.

“I think the main one for us is we went up the corridor 68% with our ball movement from D50, and just gave it back to the Saints too much. That’s not us, that’s not the way we want to play. North Sydney Oval dictated that both sides probably played into the hands of the oval a bit, St Kilda from a stoppage perspective and us from a ball movement perspective. We definitely want to shift the ball a little bit wider, and I think that’ll be a key against Collingwood is to try and use the wings a little bit more. We actually had our numbers, so going through the corridor’s fine when you’re in the forward half, but in the back half you definitely have to build the ball up a little bit more and we just didn’t do that and capitalise on the way our forwards were set up.”

Later in the evening and over at Marvel Stadium it was time for the final two expansion sides to take to the field, as Essendon defeated Hawthorn.

Hawthorn coach Bec Goddard said that despite her side matching it with the Bombers for three quarters, her side did not bring the pressure for the full quarters.

“I thought for three quarters it was neck and neck. We felt that our pressure was really at the level we wanted it to be at and it hadn’t been probably in the couple of practise matches we’d had but it went to a new level tonight, so that’s a great part of progress, but the fourth quarter we went into some habits that we probably don’t want to see, and again that’s about 12 debutants that have never played AFLW before, 12 debutants tonight, and that’s what they’ll learn about playing at that level, about what it takes to beat a really good opposition. And they were really good, they were really good for four quarters, we were good for three.”

Goddard was full of praise for young forward Sophie Locke, who after an emotional few weeks made her debut and created history as the club’s inaugural goal kicker.

“I thought she was our best forward on the ground tonight. I think she finished with about 10 kicks, she had five tackles, kicked a goal, she just looked dangerous every time it was near her. She is a remarkable young person, again never played AFLW before, and with the tragedy of her family over the last couple of weeks and the way that she’s kept turning up is like a true test, she’s a real character of our footy team and she really wears her heart on her sleeve too, so it was great that we could get her a goal.”

Meanwhile over at the winners camp, the overwhelming feeling post match for Bombers coach Nat Wood was pride.

“Right now relief. Obviously for an expansion team you spend a lot of time thinking and planning, so I feel like round one has been a long time coming even though the season came up quite quickly, and just proud. Proud of the club, proud of the players, I guess firstly regardless of the result to be able to put a really competitive team out there and to such professionalism. Proud of the industry for being able to move the game to Marvel, and I think there was about 12 and a half thousand people, I thought that was really well done. The atmosphere, it seems like the crowd were really enjoying the spectacle, so I guess proud of the industry, proud of the club and really importantly proud of the playing group.”

Despite the Bombers really getting on top of Hawthorn in the last quarter, Wood said it all came off the back of their third quarter performance.

“I was really proud with our third quarter. Hawthorn were doing some really good things late in the second quarter and were really challenging us, and so our group after half time were able to change up a couple of things and wrestle that momentum. I was pretty proud of the group that we stayed in that wrestle through the third quarter which enabled us to start get a little bit of reward for that in the fourth quarter. But yeah definitely thought the fourth quarter was off the back of the relentlessness and persistence that the group showed in the third.”