AFTER hitting a “rough patch” the past three weeks, Fremantle coach Lisa Webb could not have been prouder of how her players stood up to continue the Dockers’ AFL Women’s dominance over West Coast. Yet to suffer a defeat to their blue and gold cross-state rivals, the Dockers came in off the back of three straight losses, while the Eagles were sitting pretty with a 3-1 record.

However the ladder meant little in the game, with the weather making the contest all the more difficult at Fremantle Oval. Often in dire wet and muddy conditions, the Dockers ground out a 3.5 (23) to 2.4 (16) victory to make it eight straight victories over West Coast. Webb said she was proud of the way her group continued to work back into form.

“Obviously we’ve been challenged a lot over the last few weeks,” she said. “We took a lot of things from our review and stepped forward today in a growth in some of the areas which was contest and team D. They’re an incredibly talented side and they’ve shown a lot of improvement, so for our girls to be able to adapt and get to work on some of those areas, I thought was a real improvement.”

While the conditions were hardly perfect for the spectator, any side boasting the likes of Kiara Bowers, Angela Stannett and Aisling McCarthy is going to thrive in the wet. Webb said the players enjoyed the extra challenge.

“I think naturally the girls just love getting dirty with those groundballs, they were super physical,” Webb said. “They’re fiercely driven to want to win every match and yes we’ve been disappointed but we knew we were on the right track.

“When you look Turbo (Bowers), Ange (Stannett), Ash Mac (McCarthy) as well, you just know that they’re going to get absolutely physically out there and IO thought we were very good at that. Certainly the game ebbed and flowed but happy to be on the right side of the ledger.”

Orlagh Lally won best afield honours in the Derby, finishing with 24 disposals, nine marks, four tackles in a goal. Webb said as always she was “impressed” with Lally and said she had that level of performance coming “for a long time”.

“She works so incredibly hard,” Webb said. “I met her when she was obviously younger and she came over here and the growth she has shown in the three or four years she’s been over here has been incredible.

“She’s always in my office and she works really closely with Cam Shepherd and I know she’s got great support with her Irish teammates, but also Gabby O’Sullivan so really proud of the growth she’s shown, she’s great on both sides of her body and she got really physical and as a winger that’s obviously a real attribute to her game.”

Webb is aware the job is not done, with the Dockers’ percentage copping a beating of late, and the team sits 14th, but technically just four points outside the top eight. Next up is Essendon a side that has stumbled the last fortnight and is 3-2 for the season.

“I’m always really proud of this group. The one thing that they’ll do and do it again come Monday is show up with a mindset that they want to improve and grow and that never wavers even when we were beaten quite convincingly,” Webb said. “Then today they’ll still show up, they’ll obviously enjoy this with the fans who we’ve obviously had a bit of a rough patch lately.

“For them to show up Monday ready to go and we’re really determined to get back on the ledger with Essendon who we know are a terrific team and we’ve had some finals battles against them. Incredibly proud, they’ve always got it in them, that belief has always been there so I’m just pleased that we got to show that today.”