HAWTHORN is not resting on its laurels in the 2025 AFL Women’s season, with coach Daniel Webster firmly set on continuing the brown and gold’s winning ways in the last three games. The Hawks have won eight of nine this season – only losing to Adelaide – but after a series of nail-biting results early in the year, the Hawks percentage of 129.3 is the lowest of the top four sides, and just 1.2 per cent higher than fifth placed Adelaide.

At his post-match press conference, Webster was asked about if the brand the Hawks were showing is where they want to be now that top four is a lock, the Hawks coach was quick to shut down any suggestions that the second placed Hawks were secure with a double chance.

“Firstly I don’t think top four is a lock, not with our percentage,” he said. “I think we’re going to probably need to win 10 games out of 12 to get there, so that’s definitely not a lock for us. We’ve got to keep getting better and win more games.”

However he was pleased with the way the side was progressing and getting better in terms of a brand identity heading into what is definitely another finals series.

“I think that’s more close to the brand we want to be playing and I think we’ve shown a lot of good signs,” Webster said. “It’s again being tricky as we said we’ve had some tough conditions to play in and even today there was enough to put you off a little bit, but at least we move the ball, the way we ran was a lot better and the ball was flowing a bit more which is kind of what we want to do.

“I think we’re tracking nicely in that sense so it sets up a nice backend of the year for us.”

The comments came after Hawthorn defeated last placed Gold Coast by 23 points in Frankston, but had 20 scoring shots to seven. There were still some “frustrating things” for the Hawks coach, but he conceded the Suns kicked some “amazing” goals which kept the deficit tighter.

“I think some of their ability to go from coast-to-coast was one of the most frustrating things,” he said. “I mean a couple of those we had shots on goal and then didn’t defend well enough on the way back and I mean credit to them, some of the goals they kicked today were amazing.

“It’s obviously a tough one because for most of the game we played very good and I think we had 20 scoring shots to seven which is a really good performance, but hurts a little bit that last little bit, but we worked very hard to that point in time and just a couple of little lapses in defence really more than anything else.”

Gold Coast had five more disposals overall, while also having the three main ball-winners in Charlie Rowbottom (28 disposals), Niamh McLaughlin (21) and Maddy Brancatisano (21), ahead of Hawthorn’s top accumulators, Eliza West and Lucy Wales (18).

Webster said it was worth remembering that the Hawks had a young midfield group compared to an experienced big-bodied Suns outfit, with Daisy Flockart, Laura Stone and Jasmine Fleming in their first, second and fourth years respectively.

“I think the interesting thing looking at our inside mids is the lack of marks that we took from them today and whether there’s an inability to control the ball around the ground a little bit better and open up those short kicks,” Webster said.

“I thought they worked really well today, especially thinking how young they are, like Daisy’s second game, Stoney’s in her second year and Jas is only 20, so we’ve got a very young midfield against some very classy players like Rowbottom’s incredibly hard to stop, and it was good for Daisy to get some matchups there as well as Stoney.

“I just think they’re a continual work in progress about what we want to do. “We want to create more options and find different ways to move the ball and be creative in that sense. It’s coming along but we’ll keep trying to tighten that up.”

Hawthorn takes on Port Adelaide and Essendon over the next fortnight ahead of a potential top of the table last round clash against North Melbourne in Round 12.