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For a while it looked as though the weather would spoil the Bulldogs’ party.
The Bulldogs were the better team all year, and had a better lineup on paper even without Katie Brennan, but the Grand Final was their first wet game of the year, while it was Brisbane’s third.
Queensland in summer is much wetter than Victoria, so no prizes for guessing which players had the most experience in the wet.
In the first half, it showed, with Brisbane simply cleaner and smarter at the stoppages — Jamie Stanton, Jessica Anderson and Emily Bates racking up numbers unmatched by the Bulldogs’ more high profile midfield stars.
But all season, the Lions have struggled to convert possession and inside fifties into goals with the same efficiency as the Bulldogs or even Melbourne, and finished the half with only one-goal-one to show for their dominance, against one point to the Bulldogs.
Unable to get clean possession through the midfield, the Bulldogs’ mids were reduced to bombing the ball forward, where the indomitable Kate Lutkins hoovered up intercept mark after mark, finishing with six, plus 21 possessions.
If Katie Brennan had not been suspended, it’s possible that Lutkins would not have been able to roam wild in the first half, giving the other Dogs forwards a chance, and Brisbane having no lead at halftime.
At the other end, Libby Birch and Hannah Scott were again superb, shutting down many Brisbane entries and proving a large part of the reason why Brisbane struggled to capitalise on their dominance.
In the second half, the rain began to ease and the Bulldogs midfield finally got cracking. In what perhaps proved to be the decisive incident of the match, Monique Conti, who had been near-invisible to halftime, drifted into the backline and did what she does best, clear the ball from traffic.
Then Kirsty Lamb took a big hit and missed most of the third quarter, leading to the suddenly-confident Conti to take her place on the ball.
More possessions followed, then Conti followed the ball back to the forward line once more, locking it in for repeated entries and kicking a goal in an eight-disposal, one-quarter effort that won her Best on Ground.
I’ve been saying all season that however good Conti is in the forward line, the Bulldogs pay a price for her absence from the midfield, and now that one quarter on the ball has arguably won them the Grand Final.
(Photo by Adam Trafford/AFL Media/Getty Images)
This is not to detract from Emma Kearney, Elli Blackburn or least of all from Kirsty Lamb, who was incredible all game, winning repeated hard balls and taking hit after hit.
But the point of having a really good midfield is that when all your team’s stars are marked and smothered by opposition players, you just have that one too many great players for them to handle.
For the Bulldogs in the third quarter, Conti was that one too many, and after the Lions had battled admirably to contain Blackburn and Kearney, seeing Conti weaving away from their clutches must have been disheartening.
Obviously it was shattering for the Lions to lose two Grand Finals in a row, but in sport as in life, there’s no such thing as ‘your turn’.
Next year’s crop of Queensland junior talent looks impressive, and the Lions are at least as good a chance of making the granny next year as well.
But in 2020 the Gold Coast Suns enter the competition, and we’ve no idea how many players Brisbane will lose then. Following that, Brisbane’s unchallenged access to every new youngster coming down the Queensland talent pipeline will end.
It’s possible that there will be enough Queensland talent to go around, but it’s also possible that the Lions’ best window to win the premiership will end in two years’ time.
They’ve had two chances so far, and if they don’t grab the title next year, that might be their last for a while.
For the Bulldogs, the win is a fitting reward for being the unquestioned best team in the league through the regular season.
(Photo by Adam Trafford/AFL Media/Getty Images)
Given that it was achieved without their number one draft pick (Isabelle Huntington), and without Katie Brennan for half the season plus the GF, makes the achievement all the more impressive.
The slightly alarming thing for opposing clubs is that the Bulldogs can still improve a lot.
Obviously they’d love to have Brennan, Huntington and Daria Bannister back for a full season, plus some of their cross-code stars — Brooke Lochland, Aisling Utri, Libby Birch, Bonnie Toogood and Kim Rennie to name just a few — are still very inexperienced in this sport.
Established youngsters like Conti will only get better, plus it’s easy to forget that Ellie Blackburn is only 23.
And although next year’s Victorian draft will be diluted for the Dogs by both their top finish, and by the new expansion teams (presumably) taking extra picks, it’s still going to be by far the best crop of new talent yet — as will every draft in the AFLW for the next ten years and probably beyond.
If the Dogs can get a couple more good youngsters, and continue their amazing run of converting code-hoppers into footballers, there’s no reason they can’t get a lot better next year.
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