History repeats as Lions return to defend AFLW title

REIGNING AFL Women’s premiers Brisbane are through to yet another decider after accounting for old rivals Adelaide last night.

Reflecting on it all post-match, Brisbane coach Craig Starcevich said his adrenaline and heart rate were “still up” but he was “relieved” and “just really proud of the way we stuck at it in the second half and just kept grinding away and got the ascendancy and we look like we’re running on top of the ground in the last half there, which was fantastic.”

Asked about how he felt about making yet another AFLW Grand Final, Starcevich admitted he had not “processed it yet”.

“Our two finals coming in have been really, really tough against Hawthorn a couple of weeks ago, who are at the peak of their powers and the Crows tonight who we’ve always had really tough contests against,” he said.

“It’s relief, but in an hour or so we might process it and just realise that we’re back there to give ourselves a chance of winning another one.”

Brisbane came out really strong after half-time, and Starcevich noted his message to his troops at the main break was a pretty straight forward one about their method.

“We’re trying to play a little bit too precise, I thought, in the first half,” Starcevich said.

“But once we sort of got into full on surge mentality and got the ball forward any shape or whatever way we could, we actually started to look dangerous. “So just to get some territory in the front half and lock it in there and just have a few repeat looks at the goal, that was our main message.”

There was also a few changes made to the midfield personnel, adding in the likes of Jade Ellenger, which did add some speed into the area but that was not the main goal of the move according to Starcevich.

“The speed was a nice byproduct, but to quell Ebony [Marinoff} was probably the main thing we were trying to do with Jade,” Starcevich said.

“The extra bonus is she’s pretty athletic herself and if she gets her hands on it, she can make the opposition pay a bit as well. So we’ve got the double whammy there.”

Starcevich also praised the defensive running of the midfielders, particularly the likes of Orla O’Dwyer, Lily Postlethwaite, Charlotte Mullins and Sophie Conway.

“That’s a trademark a little bit of our wingers, that they’re just power runners and get back to help,” Starcevich said.

“Lily, Charlie, Orla, Sophie for a little bit, all got back and helped defence really, really well. But I guess Orla was the standout to get back and help out Natty [Grider] and Bree [Koenen] and Jennifer [Dunne] a couple of times when it was really needed. “So that was really good.”

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