Adelaide Crows Win First AFLW Grand Final

Fairfax

ADELAIDE   2.1.13   2.7.19   4.9.33   4.11.35
BRISBANE    1.0.6   2.1.13   3.3.21     4.5.29

Joyous feeling: The Crows players celebrate. Photo: Getty Images

In the end, all the sound and fury that surrounded the lead-up to the inaugural AFLW grand final – about the venue, the state of the ground, the justified sense of grievance held by the Lions, who had more than earned the right to play the game on their own turf – echoed through the stands.
No, this game shouldn't have been played at Metricon Stadium. And had it been played at the Gabba, the home crowd would undoubtedly have been bigger. But putting that aside, Metricon has rarely, if ever, seen such a passionate response to any game. It was loud, it was proud, it was furious. It was great.
It's already redundant to say AFLW is here to stay – that was obvious from this first season's inception. And while the Lions, who looked gone early in the last quarter, just kept on fighting, the Crows took the honours – shattering the dreams of the Lions who had gone through the season undefeated.

Why the Crows won
Adelaide took the honours for a number of reasons. The first was Erin Phillips, of whom much more shortly. But the Crows looked decisively stronger, more physical, and more composed. Their nerves settled more quickly, with Kellie Gibson swooping on a loose ball in the right pocket to snap for goal within 20 seconds. And they eschewed anything too fancy, playing as directly as possible, as if this was a wet-weather game, which it wasn't. But it was brutally effective.

The moment everyone will talk about
In the 20th minute of the third quarter, Erin Phillips took a ferocious pack mark for the Crows – her fifth for the game – that highlighted her dominance of the match. With players coming from all sides, Phillips took a classic power forward's grab, full of courage and power. She was simply too strong for her opponents. Sabrina Frederick-Traub might have had this moment with a hacked goal out of mid-air a few minutes later, followed by an even better celebration to lift her side, but Phillips time and again was a steadying influence, lifting as the moment demanded.

The hero
Phillips. The Crows' centre half-forward dominated long stretches of this game, bullocked her way through contest after contest, tackled harder and more frequently than anyone on the field and collected possessions at will. Her raw statistics didn't lie: 28 possessions (26 of them kicks), seven marks, seven tackles and two goals. It was a perfect 10 game.

Erin Phillips takes a spectacular high mark for the Adelaide Crows during the AFLW grand final. Photo: Getty Images

When her teammates couldn't capitalise on her work in the second quarter, it was Phillips who stepped up with a decisive goal early in the third quarter that gave her side a 14-point break. And when the Lions lifted with a goal hacked out of mid-air by Frederick-Traub, Phillips responded by outsmarting everyone in a race to the ball to kick her side clear again. She was the best player on the ground by a mile.

The heartbreak
It was all the Lions. After dominating the inaugural season, the sight of the players slumped, inconsolable, at the end of the game was wrenching. Doubtless, the lead-up to the game had been a distraction and a source of anger; whether some of their energies had already been spent is a matter of conjecture. But the bottom line was the Crows were the better side and thoroughly deserved the win.