Western Bulldogs: 2018 AFL Women's Premiers

FROM ladder stragglers to triumphant champions. The Western Bulldogs are the NAB AFL Women's premiers.

The Bulldogs completed their remarkable transformation with a fighting six-point win over Brisbane on a wet Ikon Park on Saturday.

The 4.3 (27) to 3.3 (21) triumph came with a spirited second half revival after the Dogs were held goalless in a scrappy first half played in steady rain.

After fighting to avoid the wooden spoon in the final round last season, the Bulldogs rose to emulate the feats of the club's men's team two years ago.

Fittingly, brave midfielder Emma Kearney sealed the victory with a tackle on Lion Kaitlyn Ashmore late in the last quarter and she goalled from the free kick from 30m.

Lion Jess Wuetschner fought valiantly to keep her team within reach of the flag with two goals in the final term, the second cutting the margin to five points.

But Brisbane was fated to another heartbreaking Grand Final loss after falling to Adelaide by the same margin in the inaugural AFLW season's decider.

The Bulldogs' ball movement improved after half-time and a midfield dominance led by Kearney applied heat to the Lions backline.

"It was just adjusting to wet weather footy. At half-time the girls were calm and focused," Bulldogs coach Paul Groves said.

Their persistence finally paid off when Deanna Berry booted their first goal with a long shot on the run early in the third quarter. And when Aisling Utri hit the post with a hurried snap, the home team had edged ahead for the first time.

The Bulldogs controlled the critical third quarter and finally got the scoreboard ticking over. Kirsten McLeod, the replacement for suspended skipper Katie Brennan, kicked a goal with a hurried left foot shot from 20m.

"Clearly after half-time, they upped the ante in the middle and we didn't respond," Lions coach Craig Starcevich said.

"Their quality mids started to get their hands on it. They were clean when going forward and got the ball out the back and managed to score."

Monique Conti was a major contributor in the Bulldogs' third term comeback and the basketball point guard extended the lead to 13 points when a long shot on the run bounced through the unguarded goal just 15 seconds before the siren.

Conti, who won the medal for best on the ground, reflected the Dogs' turnaround after being lost in wet weather mode in the first half.

"I had to lift my game, get the ball on the ground. I just wanted to win, get it into our (forward) 50 and keep it in there," she said.

Brisbane dominated possession in a dour first half on what was a greasy surface after heavy pre-match rain. But they couldn't make the Bulldogs pay on the scoreboard.

"Last year was disappointing, this was frustrating because we thought we were all over them early and didn't hurt them," Starcevich said.

It took a precision centred pass from Wuetschner to find unmarked Sophie Conway virtually right in front midway through the opening quarter for what would be the only goal of the slogging first half.

But clean marks, particularly contested ones, were difficult in the tough conditions when players often worked the ball forward by simply soccering off the wet turf. And the slippery ball was hard to gather, even when a player wasn't under direct pressure from an opponent.

Lions defender Kate Lutkins is such a great reader of the play and she had a picnic sitting loose inside the defensive 50 to continually repel the frustrated Dogs. But, the defensive toil of Lutkins and Ally Anderson wasn't enough to lift their team over the line.

WESTERN BULLDOGS   0.1   0.1   3.2   4.3 (27)                 
BRISBANE LIONS         1.1   1.1   1.1   3.3 (21)         

GOALS
Western Bulldogs: Berry, McLeod, Conti, Kearney
Brisbane Lions: Wuetschner 2, Conway

BEST
Western Bulldogs: Conti, Blackburn, Kearney, Birch, Spark, Bruton
Brisbane Lions: Lutkins, Stanton, Wuetschner, Zielke, Ashmore

INJURIES
Western Bulldogs: Nil
Brisbane Lions: Campbell (head knock)

Reports: Nil

Umpires: Mirable, Howorth, Adair

Crowd: 7,083 at Ikon Park

AFLW Grand Final Best Player Voting
9 – Monique Conti, Western Bulldogs
8 – Kate Lutkins, Brisbane
5 – Ellie Blackburn, Western Bulldogs
1 – Emma Kearney, Western Bulldogs
1 – Ally Anderson, Brisbane

Western Bulldogs: 2016 AFL Premiers

If you were going to take 60 years to win a premiership, and you wanted to make it a premiership worth 60 years of waiting,  how would you script it?

Here's one way.

You could start two years beforehand with a crisis that led to the captain and coach leaving the club. You could replace the coach with a rookie called Luke Beveridge whose chief claim to fame was a couple of premierships in the amateurs and a stint in security in the public service.

You could replace the captain with a heart-and-soul veteran called Bob Murphy who in the season in question would do his knee and not play again after round three. You could put him out on the ground on grand final day anyway, because as sure as eggs, he was. I don't mean after the game, but during it. Surely you could see it. You could have it that he had his matchday guernsey on under his jacket all day.

You could survive a rash of injuries to other players besides, and finish seventh on the ladder, from where no-one has won a premiership before, and put yourself in a position where you had to win four finals in a row, starting with one in Perth.

You could win, and two, and three, gathering momentum as you go, and sweeping your hometown up along with you, and a lot of incidentals and casuals besides. You could turn the grand final, which it might easily be forgotten is just a game of football, into a kind of morality play. You could write it so that at the end of the day, everyone felt a little bit better about footy.

Even your opponents might come around to that point of view eventually, for this was a rare grand final day on which it was possible to barrack for one team and not against the other. You could, without giving offence to the Swans, make it that good guys win.

When it was done, and you'd stopped pinching yourself and slapping your own face, and the time came to divide the spoils, you could have that coach call up to the podium that maimed skipper and as 100,000 are your witness, hand over his premiership medallion, saying something like: "This is yours, mate. You deserve it more than anyone." Then he would also hand over joint responsibility with the stand-in captain for receiving and raising that mythical cup.

You'd have to write in a pause here, for tears and tissues, and _ why not? ­_ a beer.

Impossible, yes? A fable, yes? Well, why not give it a few more twists?  Why not pair yourself in the grand final with the Sydney Swans, the minor premier, the team that that is always there, the gold standard when it comes to finals style footy, the team whose captain, Kieren Jack, no-one could doubt at the end when he said:  "We didn't get the job done, but we're coming back. We're going nowhere."

Why not make it that you engage them on titanic terms for three-and-a-half quarters, and every now and then have them look as if  they might be about to shrug you off, and send shivers up all spines at the crucial moment early in the last quarter when Lance Franklin shapes a goal from 50 metres that reduces the margin to a point, and seems to presage a winning Swans surge?

Why not massage the script so that you match the Swans in what they do well, ferocity at the fall of the ball, and add something they don't, fleetness of foot and a preparedness to use it? Why not make it the sort of game in which every good turn deserved another, and every tackle, too, and in the third quarter have it that both teams find extra reserves of strength, as men in mortal danger do?

Why not now cast some improbable heroes? One could be, say, Tom Boyd, a lump of a lad who you poached from Greater Western Sydney in that crisis moment, really the president insisted and because you didn't want to be seen as a club that would accept to be pushed around, but who for two years you have found to be a bit of puzzle. Maybe he could grow through this final series, figuratively, but you would almost swear literally and on this day play his best match.

One could be Jason Johannisen, although you probably wouldn't given him that haircut. One  could be Liam Picken, son of a Collingwood great, but now with one over his dad, a premiership. Maybe it could be that he took four years to get onto a list, and spent most of his career since tagging, but was liberated by the new coach to play as a deadly forward?

One could be Dale Morris, a 33-yearold who the coach surely had in mind when he said this team was all heart, because for a dozen years it has leapt out of his chest so that he could play on and beat outsized opponents, and did again this day.

One could enigmatic Jake Stringer, who had only one decent moment for the day, but what a moment?

Why not, when the time came, link all these instant heroes in the final act? You could have it that in the centre of the MCG, Franklin is about to drive the Swans forward, but is tacked and dispossessed _ no-one strips Buddy Franklin _ by Morris, and ball tumbles free to Boyd, who tears up the playbook and thumps it forward and perhaps catches a gust of the crowd's urging tumbles and rolls through.

You could make it that just before that, Johannisen had kicked a goal that was overruled by a TV umpire because of a supposed touch on the goal-line, though everyone on both sides had accepted it and were in the centre for the next bounce. You could moralise here, about how a great grand final might have been ruined by a fatuous protocol. But it would be edited out.

You could have it that the Bulldogs beat the Swans at their own game. You could have it that exaltation on the boundary line and in the crowd looked like exactly it was, bursting with deliverance of 62 years. You'd have to leave a bit of space here, for more tears and cheers.

You could have the joy washing from one side of the MCG to the other, and back and forth across the change rooms, too, and not one player removing his guernsey _  because why would you ever take if off? _ and dozens of old players not bothering to hold back their tears and mouthing the theme of the week and the moment: "I never thought I'd see the day."

You could make it the best thing some old lags in the press box have ever seen in footy. You could even make it an AFL/VFL premiership double, like anyone has ever done that?

But who on earth would ever would you believe that any footy team could do all that?

The Bulldogs just did. They bloody well did. It's a fairytale, and even if the whole competition returns to normally programming next year, it will always be a fairytale.

More bark...even more bite!

Western Bulldogs bring Brisbane Lions down to earth

• From:AAP 
• March 30, 2013 4:53PM

Bulldogs mature-aged recruit Brett Goodes clears from defence against Brisbane at Etihad Stadium. Picture: Michael Klein Source: Herald Sun

THE Western Bulldogs have smashed pre-season premiers Brisbane by 68 points in a stunning round-one AFL upset.

The Bulldogs defied predictions of a tough season by dominating from the start and winning 19.13 (127) to 7.17 (59) at Etihad Stadium.

Ruckman Will Minson was outstanding and former Port Adelaide midfielder Nick Lower completely shut Lions star Daniel Rich out of the game.

Brett Goodes, the younger brother of Sydney star Adam, had a dream AFL debut at the age of 29 with his faultless game off half-back.

Another Bulldogs newcomer, ex-West Coast onballer Koby Stevens, also impressed before he left the game in the third term with a leg injury.

The win is a major confidence boost for the Bulldogs, who are a popular choice to finish in the bottom four this season.

By contrast, the Lions were unrecognisable from the powerful combination that easily beat Carlton in the NAB Cup final.

While Brisbane deserved favouritism after winning the NAB Cup, the Bulldogs' pre-season featured a 109-point pummelling from Fremantle - their opponents at Etihad Stadium next weekend.Pearce Hanley was either reported or will come under video scrutiny for a late challenge on Daniel Giansiracusa, also in the third quarter.They were belted at the stoppages and adding to their woes, defender Matt Maguire was subbed off in the third term with a leg injury.

Bulldogs star Adam Cooney was playing despite being in hospital only days earlier with a knee infection and captain Matthew Boyd (calf) was a big absentee.

But the Dogs looked much better from the start, keeping Brisbane goal-less in the first term and taking a 31-point lead.

Lower restricted Rich to just only one possession in the opening quarter.

The Lions had their chances, but kicking 0.6 in the first term was disastrous.

Brisbane predictably rallied early in the second term, with former Demons Brent Moloney kicking their first goal in the first minute.

Another goal from Rich in the third minute reduced the margin to 20 points, but that would be the closest they would come.

The Bulldogs kicked three of the last four goals in the second term, giving them a 37-point lead at the long break.

They capped off a great day by kicking six goals to two in the third term for a 61-point lead at the last change.

Bulldogs forward Luke Dahlhaus was helped off the ground in the last term after a heavy collision.

WESTERN BULLDOGS 6.1 10.5 16.9 19.13 (127)
BRISBANE 0.6 3.10 5.14 7.17 (59)

Goals: Western Bulldogs: D Giansiracusa 3 S Higgins 3 A Cordy 2 L Dahlhaus 2 R Griffen 2 R Murphy 2 T Dickson 2 A Cooney J Johannissen L Jones. Brisbane: A Cornelius B Moloney C Beams D Rich J Brown J Redden S Martin.
Best: Western Bulldogs: W Minson N Lower B Goodes R Griffen M Wallis D Morris J Roughead K Stevens R Murphy T Liberatore. Brisbane: T Rockliff B Moloney. Umpires: Jeff Dalgleish, Robert Findlay, Dean Margetts. Official Crowd: 25,263 at Etihad Stadium.

AAP