AFLW R3 2023: Lions v Sydney Swans, 5.05pm EST Sun 17 Sept Springfield Qld

[stellation]

Little worried Gardiner is going to have an Alexei Navalney style turn on the flight home- does Putin deal in leather poisoning?

[dejavoodoo44]

Would love it if Courtney Hodder wanted to move to Sydney. I tend to think of her as the Cyril Rioli of the AFLW.

[stellation]

27 hitouts in a half for Ally.

[dejavoodoo44]

Morphett can be hard to stop.

[stellation]

I hope we’re just being overly cautious with Montana.

[stellation]

I swear the umpire wasn’t paying insufficient intent there until Brisbane asked for it (or it was a very, very late call). Wasn’t a gift at all, hell of a kick from Dakota.

[dejavoodoo44]

Did pretty well to share that quarter. Probably should have won it.

Love watching Morphett go at it. Gardiner seems to be a ball magnet. Privitelli providing a useful target in the forward line. The Irish contingent is showing some promise.

[Meg]

The Lions women could teach our blokes a bit about kicking for goal ...

[longmile]

Morphett and Gardner are stars

[Ruck'n'Roll]

Yes Allie is is very enjoyable to watch. Who knows what she will be capable of with a few more years to hone her ruck craft.

Look the result was horrid, but there were definitely moments. Nil Desperandum.

[liz]

Despite the scoreline that was probably a better performance than anything we delivered last year. It's just that the Lions had too much forward craft and class. And while we had half a dozen players who had good to excellent games, the bottom half of our team was clearly well short of the bottom half of the Lions's team.

Still, well done to Gardiner, Morphett, Kennedy and McCarthy (on debut). Heads was decent, though her kicking let her down. Privitelli presented well in the forward line. Molloy was given no space to do much (except kick four behinds) but she contributed well with her pressure and tackling. Hurley was busy but could do with tidying up her disposal. And the third Irish woman, O'Sullivan, was far from our worse too. Apart from the clean arms and legs, she looks so similar to Kennedy in the context of a fast moving game, with the wild, dark pony tails, that it can feel like seeing double at times.

Fingers crossed that Ham hasn't suffered a major setback. The glimpses she provided were tantalising.

[Meg]

Interesting comment by Gowans in his press conference that he believed the Swans women struggled to adapt to the much larger size of Brighton Homes Arena in first half today (Field dimensions: 161M x 128M); after playing first two matches at North Sydney Oval (Field dimensions: 125 x 108M).

Not something that had occurred to me.

[Thunder Shaker]

I hope we’re just being overly cautious with Montana.

Swans play down injury fears after Ham's early exit
Summary: Ham's OK. She was playing on "reduced minutes." The foot is still a little sore but she's pulled up OK.

[liz]

Swans duo poll votes from the coaches

It's encouraging that, despite the heavy scoreboard loss, a couple of our players received recognition from the coaches. It would have been close to impossible to leave Gardiner out of the votes with her 41 possessions , nine tackles and inside 50/metres gained contributions that even Errol would have been satisfied with.

But Morphett also picked up votes from at least one coach (or maybe one each from both of them). She was excellent in the ruck, but the Lions had tons of very good players so she might have been squeezed out.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

It was interesting to see how hard they sat on Molloy. Maybe it's just another aspecrt of the growing professionalism of the ALFW?