HAWTHORN had to endure a late scare, but the Hawks were able to hold on against a fast-finishing Collingwood to get back on the winner’s list in Round 6 of the AFL Women’s. The Hawks suffered their first loss of the 2025 season last week against the Crows, and looked comfortably on top of the Magpies with a quarter to play before needing to use every minute to post a 5.9 (39) to 3.12 (30) victory.

When Keely Coyne booted the first goal of the fourth term just 90 seconds into the quarter, Hawthorn lead 4.7 (31) to 0.9 (9) with the Pies’ struggling to find the big sticks. Few would have predicted over the next 15 minutes that the momentum would swing back to the home side and the Hawks coaching staffed watched as Collingwood kicked 3.3 to 0.2 to trim the deficit from 22 points to just three with just over five minutes left in the match.

Fortunately for coach Daniel Webster and his troops, Jess Vukic responded with a goal which was the first major from a centre clearance starting point for the match which helped ease the tension and eventually secure the victory.

“Collingwood have been playing some really good footy and it’s always hard coming out to this ground, they play it well,” Webster said. “It was a hard fought game, obviously tricky conditions again. “Another day where we have that fluky breeze. The surface is actually firm, and when you get the combo of the two of them, the ball just bounces around quite a bit.

“Fantastic for us to get the win, they’re playing some really good footy at the moment, they’ve got a lot of strong bodies in their side, got a lot of high quality talent and it was hard fought and they came hard at the end and we were able to hold on which I think was really good for us.”

Webster said he would love for his side to get a game at Marvel Stadium to get out of the unpredictable wind, but was pleased with how his side dealt with the challenging conditions and the fierce Magpies storming home. When asked what the key to holding the black and whites off was, he said “there’s always a lot to it”.

“I thought we did well to get numbers behind the ball at the right time and we’ve been working on our composure when we win the ball back and even then at times it was pretty good, there’s always some that make you a little nervous,” Webster said.

“They were very good in terms of putting the pressure on and they worked really hard across half-back, like I thought Tarni White off half-back was fantastic just to get that run and back. Obviously (Ruby) Schleicher‘s goal was fantastic, but I think our ability to get numbers back there at the right time, and then hold them up was probably more the key.”

Following the Round 5 loss to the Crows, Webster brought up the need for his side to execute its skills better. When asked about how he felt regarding the Hawks’ fundamentals in the win over the Pies, the Hawks coach said “much better”.

“I think the game looked a bit more like us as opposed to some of the other games,” Webster said. ‘It helps when you’ve got dynamic players like Gilly (Aileen Gilroy) and Jas (Jasmine Fleming) in the team to be able to break the lines. But I thought we were able to move the ball a little bit better and get some better chains going.

“It’s still breaking down at times, but it’s starting to look a bit more like how we want to play, and as I’ve spoken about we still want to be a high scoring team where we can, I think we’ve just lacked execution more than anything else, and as well as teams are defending us quite well, they’re putting a lot of work into what we do, which is good for us because it’s going to drive us to be better. It’s starting to look more like us which I was happy with.”

Collingwood coach Sam Wright praised the Hawks for their defensive system, and while he was “incredibly proud” his side could draw close late, was frustrated with the first half.

“We didn’t feel like any part of our system was running hot for that first half, it felt like our fundamentals especially the basics in the game which allow you to play your system, uncharacteristically just weren’t there today so struggled to get it going,” Wright said. “We were held up by a pretty solid defensive system but just didn’t allow us to either impact the scoreboard, didn’t protect us in defence, didn’t allow us to move the ball in offence.”