{"id":259185,"date":"2025-11-03T06:56:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T06:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/259185\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T06:56:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T06:56:13","slug":"north-melbourne-looking-to-make-history-in-finals-hawthorn-rivalry-building-following-jasmine-garner-snubbing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/259185\/","title":{"rendered":"North Melbourne looking to make history in finals; Hawthorn rivalry building following Jasmine Garner snubbing"},"content":{"rendered":"

As of Friday night’s qualifying final clash with Hawthorn<\/a>, it will have been 705 days since North Melbourne’s<\/a> AFLW<\/a> team lost a game.<\/p>\n

They went through the 2025 home-and-away season undefeated, winning all 12 games and finishing with a ridiculous percentage of 321.5.<\/p>\n

The Roos scored more than 200 more points than the next highest scoring team, and conceded 57 fewer than the next lowest. <\/p>\n

READ MORE: The Walsh and Ponga-like prospect who chose AFL over NRL<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: ‘Maybe to the airport’: Fiery finish sees choice words exchanged<\/a><\/p>\n

READ MORE: Club legend’s stern warning for ‘way behind’ Eagles players<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Kangaroos<\/p>\n

Kangaroos players sing the team song after beating Hawthorn.\u00a0AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Last year, they also ran through the competition without a loss, finishing with a percentage of 315 and winning the premiership.<\/p>\n

The one caveat was a draw with Geelong<\/a>, who didn’t even ultimately make the eight, in round two of 2024.<\/p>\n

It’s a far cry from their male counterparts, who have spent the 2020s plastered to the bottom of the ladder. <\/p>\n

The last time the Roos lost a game was the 2023 grand final to Brisbane<\/a>. North had hit finals in red-hot form and were the favourites going into the game, but ultimately fell short.<\/p>\n

It’s fair to say they’ve spent the last two years making amends for that hiccup. <\/p>\n

Their win in the final round of the season against Hawthorn was their 24th consecutive victory, surpassing Geelong’s 23-game winning streak across 1952 and 1953 in the men’s VFL competition. <\/p>\n

North is led by stars on every line. Jasmine Garner and Ash Riddell in the midfield, Tahlia Randall and Blaithin Bogue up forward and Libby Birch down back.<\/p>\n

But this year’s accomplishments won’t mean a whole heap of they slip on a banana peel in finals.<\/p>\n

They take on the Hawks again on Friday night, with a home preliminary final on the line.<\/p>\n

Things got a bit heated between the two clubs in the aftermath of round 12 however, with Hawthorn not lining up as North chaired off Garner in her 100th game.<\/p>\n

Given how short AFLW seasons are, it has taken her 10 seasons in the league to reach what is certainly a major milestone. <\/p>\n

\"Jasmine<\/p>\n

Jasmine Garner of the Kangaroos is chaired from the field after her 100th match.\u00a0AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

The snub has been hotly debated on social media, with former AFLW player Kate McCarthy labelling it a “poor look” for the Hawks on the AFL website.<\/p>\n

“This is on the leadership and probably the administration so your manager or someone that’s at the game that’s all across the logistics of what’s happening,” she said.<\/p>\n

Port Adelaide great Kane Cornes<\/a> was fine with it, however, posting to X that “sport isn’t supposed to be nice”.<\/p>\n

Kangaroos forward Alice O’Loughlin took a shot at Hawthorn on Instagram in the aftermath, tagging them in the post of Garner being chaired off with “where you at?”.<\/p>\n

We’ll find out on Friday what kind of fire that has lit under the two clubs.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the qualifying final bracket is Melbourne hosting Brisbane. The Lions have won seven games in a row, while the Demons have looked like North’s main competitor for most of the season.<\/p>\n

Carlton has been one of the surprise packets of the season, riding a young and exciting list to fifth place. They will host coach Daisy Pearce and West Coast in an elimination final.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Adelaide, the most successful team of the first decade of AFLW with three premierships, will face St Kilda, another big riser this season.<\/p>\n

All eyes will be on the Kangaroos however, given the history that awaits them if they do end up going through a second straight season without a loss.<\/p>\n

“I spoke to the whole program (and) the players about how proud I am of what we’ve been able to achieve,” North Melbourne coach Darren Crocker told reporters after the win over Hawthorn.<\/p>\n

“Not just this year but over the last 24 months. It’s been pretty special. Now that’s all done, we finish in pole position and a new season starts.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As of Friday night’s qualifying final clash with Hawthorn, it will have been 705 days since North Melbourne’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":259186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-259185","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259185","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=259185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}