{"id":254123,"date":"2025-10-31T22:20:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T22:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/254123\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T22:20:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T22:20:09","slug":"north-makes-history-with-24th-consecutive-aflw-win-carlton-finals-bound-after-win-in-the-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/254123\/","title":{"rendered":"North makes history with 24th consecutive AFLW win, Carlton finals-bound after win in the west"},"content":{"rendered":"

North Melbourne has become the first male or female VFL\/AFL team to win 24 consecutive games after prevailing over Hawthorn by 49 points.<\/p>\n

The AFLW minor premiers broke a 72-year-old record after easily outclassing fellow top-four side Hawks with a 10.7 (67) to 2.6 (18) victory at a rain-soaked Frankston Oval on Friday night.<\/p>\n

Tahlia Randall kicked four goals as Ash Riddell went to work in the midfield to help the Kangaroos mark captain Jasmine Garner’s 100th game in style.<\/p>\n

North Melbourne last week steamrolled St Kilda by 46 points to equal the VFL\/AFL consecutive wins record of 23 games set by Geelong through the 1952-53 VFL seasons.<\/p>\n

The Kangaroos, unbeaten since losing the 2023 grand final, head into finals after completing a perfect season.<\/p>\n

Last year’s round-two draw with Geelong is the only blemish on the reigning premiers’ record.<\/p>\n

Solely fixed on becoming the first AFLW side to claim back-to-back premierships, North Melbourne coach Darren Crocker couldn’t help but lean into cliche.<\/p>\n

“I spoke to the whole program, the players, about how proud I am of what we’ve been able to achieve, not just this year, but over the last 24 months,” Crocker said.<\/p>\n

“It’s been pretty special, but now that’s all done. We finish in pole position, and now a new season starts.<\/p>\n

“We’ve known we’ve had a target on our backs probably for two years now. It’s not something that we take lightly.”<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

League best-and-fairest favourite Riddell had her usual influence with 28 disposals and four clearances.<\/p>\n

Garner led the Kangaroos with 13 contested possessions, and finished with 24 touches.<\/p>\n

Eliza West (14 contested possessions, 30 disposals, seven clearances) was busy for Hawthorn, while the home side’s two goals came from 75-gamer Greta Bodey and Aine McDonagh.<\/p>\n

Hawks coach Daniel Webster refused to believe North Melbourne were untouchable.<\/p>\n

“The real thing with it is going to be, can you pressure them for long enough?” Webster said.<\/p>\n

“When we were able to do that, you could see some little cracks.<\/p>\n

“That’s something for us to learn, but I think every team’s gettable.”<\/p>\n

Blues lock up finals spot as Eagles face nervous wait<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Carlton has locked in an AFLW finals berth and dealt a massive blow to West Coast’s post-season hopes after sealing a hard-earned 20-point win.<\/p>\n

With scores level at 2.4 (16) at three-quarter time and finals on the line, the Blues prevailed 6.6 (42) to 3.4 (22) on Friday night after the Eagles gave away a costly 50-metre penalty.<\/p>\n

First-year Eagles superstar Lucia Painter had slotted the first goal of the fourth quarter before Blues captain Abbie McKay responded to wrestle back the lead.<\/p>\n

It was Carlton forward Tara Bohanna who steadied the visitors after Eagles opponent Georgie Cleaver gifted the extra metres.<\/p>\n

Roxanne Roux had given away possession for holding Bohanna in a marking contest, but Cleaver mistakenly dropped the ball to the ground instead of passing back to the Carlton player.<\/p>\n

Erone Fitzpatrick then added to the buffer, before Darcy Vescio wound back the clock with an after-the-siren goal.<\/p>\n

Carlton has snatched its first finals appearance since the conference system was phased out in 2021, having last reached the post-season in 2020.<\/p>\n

Mathew Buck’s side sit fifth (8-4) ahead of the weekend’s clashes, with eight points separating the Blues and 10th-placed Fremantle.<\/p>\n

But the Eagles are seventh (6-6) and will sweat on other results in their bid for a maiden finals berth under coach Daisy Pearce.<\/p>\n

West Coast was forced to play the must-win clash with one player fewer on the bench after forward Kellie Gibson failed to finish the game with illness.<\/p>\n

Gibson had taken just five touches before being ruled out after half-time.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"North Melbourne has become the first male or female VFL\/AFL team to win 24 consecutive games after prevailing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25914,25912,64,63,6856,6854,6855,85,6857],"class_list":{"0":"post-254123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-afl-womens","9":"tag-aflw","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-carlton","13":"tag-hawthorn","14":"tag-north-melbourne","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-west-coast"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}