Shelley Heath is tackled during round three, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos

NARRM is hopeful that midfielder Shelley Heath won’t be stuck on the sidelines for too long, following an elevated heart rate in Sunday’s thrilling win over Collingwood.

Heath came from the ground in some distress in the second quarter, before being ruled out of the game at half time with that elevated heart rate, but the club confirmed that it had returned to a normal level after some time with the doctor in the rooms.

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“She’d had a virus during the week, so we’re not sure if it’s related to that, but the medical team just ruled her out for the game because of that elevated heart rate,” Narrm coach Mick Stinear said.

“It was too risky to put her back on the field, but (we’re) confident she’ll be okay. We’ll just do some follow up tests and make sure we get a proper handle on her health. But yeah, confident we’re not going to see her missing for too long. But back the medial team in and health comes first.”

It was following a big hit from Collingwood ruck Imogen Barnett that Heath came to the bench, but the club is yet to make a clear correlation between the hit and Heath’s concern.

“Not sure if it was related to the hit, that’s probably part of all the follow up. But then, yeah, just a general level of fatigue, she was a bit distressed,” Stinear said.

“They’ll go away and try to get to the bottom of it now, but it would have been nice to have her services for the full game. But hopefully she’s all good, I know the medical team are pretty calm.”

Narrm’s injury list is already extensive, with two train-on players named in the club’s extended squad for the match, and key personnel Tahlia Gillard, Liv Purcell, Blaithin Mackin, and Sarah Lampard already on the long-term injury list.

It left a seriously inexperienced brigade to battle it out in defence for the Demons, with Maeve Chaplin tasked with leading the line.

“Maeve’s leadership progression has happened a lot quicker than we forecasted. There’s a lot of experienced players that left that premiership side, and Maeve was only young, and then very quickly she became a central point of our backline,” Stinear said.

The Demons conceded 42 inside 50s for the match, but restricted Collingwood to just four goals.

For Pies coach Sam Wright, there was a sense of pride that, despite the loss, they challenged the highly fancied Demons until a kick after the siren.

“We had three or four, five chances to win it in the last quarter, but we’re putting ourselves in positions to win games against top of the ladder (sides),” Wright said.

“When you come up against a good side like Narrm, if you start looking at the whole ground it can get a little bit worrying, but for us, and for them, it starts in the contest. So, we really tried to match it in there with what it looked like around our contested method. Also tried to open up the ground a little bit more with our ball movement.

“It’s probably the best we’ve moved the ball, I think whether it was slow play, fast play, live play, I felt like they were courageous with the way that we moved the ball.”