BRISBANE created a little bit of history yesterday in the AFL Women’s, inflicting North Melbourne’s first loss in both 2023 and in the state of Tasmania after coming from behind at half time.

It was one of those matches where it was a tale of two halves as North Melbourne dominated the first half, but Brisbane was able to turn things around in the second term and take the win.

In the first half, North Melbourne, and particularly their midfielders, were very much on top. The Kangaroos were winning the clearance battle, and able to get first use of the ball to their forwards. This is even more telling when you look at the top disposal winners to half time and see that North Melbourne’s top three ball winners were all midfielders (Jasmine Garner, Ash Riddell and Mia King) while for Brisbane it was two defenders (Jade Ellenger and Natalie Grider) and a midfielder/forward (Sophie Conway).

Garner in particular was proving to be a clearance winning machine for the Kangaroos and a real hassle for the Lions.

That was until a coaching move by Craig Starcevich that turned out to be a bit of a coaching master stroke.

He rejigged his midfield several times, including running the likes of Courtney Hodder and Ellie Hampson through there just to provide some sort of spark for his team.

However, it was a different move that was more slightly out of the box that seemed to work the best.

He employed a bit of a tagger on Garner, but of all people he could have picked he went to his skipper in Bre Koenen.

Her defensive mindset allowed her to tackle quelling Garner like she would any other forward, and Garner’s influence on the match significantly dropped. She went from a huge 18 disposals in the first half to only 12 in the second.

With Garner kept quiet by Koenen, this allowed the script to flip and Brisbane’s midfielders started to take control of the game. A prime example of this is Ally Anderson, who went from only having six first half disposals, to having 15 of them in the third quarter alone.

She had influences on other aspects of the match too, sneaking into attack to kick Brisbane’s first goal of the second half, and get the fightback started on the scoreboard.

Unlike other taggers, Koenen still got to see plenty of the ball herself, finishing with 19 touches.

Starcevich may have just found a secret weapon he can use for later in the season. With plenty of dominant midfielders left to face this season and with Koenen proving doubters about her running capacity wrong, this role might not be a one time sighting.