SYDNEY picked up its second win of the 2024 AFL Women’s season after narrowly downing crosstown rivals GWS by three points yesterday. It was a match of swinging momentums, with Sydney needing several goes to finally get the job done in the last quarter.

However, that was pleasing for Sydney coach Scott Gowans.

“It’s actually a good sign for us that we’re able to do that,” Gowans said.

“GWS to their credit just kept coming and yeah, we’ve made some stuff, we made some errors that probably gave them momentum back when we shouldn’t have, but we’re still a young side just learning and the main thing was the resilience.

“We showed resilience just to fight that out. We had a set play at the end, which the girls executed beautifully.”

He also praised the efforts of Cynthia Hamilton, who played more in the midfield and less in the forwardline than she usually does.

“Cynthia played a great game today,” Gowans said. “She’s been asking to play more midfield time and we’ve sort of held her back a little bit just from just from a developmental point of view, but she really proved it today that she’s ready to take that next step with her game and I’m very proud of her today.”

Gowans does see Hamilton settling more into the midfield long-term.

“Absolutely,” he said. “Her pressure acts are amazing, and the other thing that we were lacking over the last few weeks was a little bit of I suppose, footy IQ, and Cynthia’s got a very high footy IQ.

“So putting her in the middle allows us to just to get things done with set ups at stoppages. GWS stoppages are quite complicated, so we needed to do some work there as well and Cynthia got that done.”

Someone who also got a run in a few different spots yesterday was Montana Ham.

Gowans said she would likely play across all three lines depending on where the Swans need her.

“She’s usually the plus one,” he said. “We didn’t do that today, but she’s sort of I suppose, taking the Chloe (Molloy) mantle, if you like, and time for her to sort of step up, and I thought she’s done that really well over the last two weeks.

“She’s a great player. “Great contest winner, like on the stoppage, and she’s got that clearance that leads to the goal that stretched the margin when it turned into a big match. She just gets, she just gets stuff done, just a competitor and you rotate her off and you have a chatter on the phone and she’s just so focused on the game of footy. She’s a football person that is very valuable to the team.”