HAWTHORN head coach Bec Goddard certainly had a big grin on her face after her side defeated Sydney on Saturday to win its second game of 2023.

But after a slow start, Goddard was not feeling so happy.

“Why do they do this to me? Why do they stress me out?” she said with a laugh.

“Well actually it’s a real credit to the players because they got themselves out of that. They were the ones that did that work and they’ve got real character and showed a hell of a lot of resilience today and it makes me really proud as a coach when you see them do that themselves.”

“I think that’s the most physical encounter we’ve had this season actually, of any of the teams we’ve played, and we’ve played some pretty good teams. So the Swans are really coming, that’s for sure.”

Goddard also alluded to what was spoken about at half time, with making the most of the third quarter a key talking point.

“I think we knew the third quarter was probably our last chance to score heavily, we talked about it at half time,” she said. “But the way we were going to score was going to be off the back of elite pressure, so players like Stratts did that unbelievably well today and set herself up to have shots on goal.”

It was a historic win for the Hawks, with it being their first ever win outside Victoria.

“It’s a great feeling” Goddard said, speaking about the milestone.

“We just had all the staff in the rooms to do the song with us too, because those are the moments you have to celebrate, especially when you’re a new team in the competition, and all the work that everyone puts in to make us great. Travelling interstate under those conditions, it was damn hot as well, we were really proud of the win.”

Goddard said that they did look at some tapes from last year’s win over the Swans before Saturday’s game, but it was only the night before.

“We looked at some tape last night of our first win when we played them last year,” she said. “To just show our players ‘remember what it feels like and how good it is to win?’ We did some really good things in that game, but the Swans have got almost a completely different looking team this year so we knew it was going to be a really hard battle.”