CARLTON has kick-started its AFL Women\u2019s season with a win over arch-rival Collingwood at Ikon Park with coach Matthew Buck declaring it a \u201creally mature performance\u201d. In front of an energetic crowd of more than 8000 people, the Blues conceded the first two goals of the match before slamming home six of the last seven for a 6.9 (45) to 3.3 (21) victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been chasing over now going into our third season so to go down early but no one panicked, managed to regulate themselves and got back in the game with our contest and defence I thought,\u201d Buck said. \u201cI was really pleased with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the Magpies at times bombed forward with hope in their heart more than anything, the Blues had some method in the way they transitioned the ball, and Buck said the speed added to the offensive movement was a key focus.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve always spoke contest and defence and they were always going to be the first thing,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you chase five rabbits you catch none, so we get those areas right and then we\u2019ve started to add our offensive layer this time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw glimpses of them which were great, but we\u2019ll need to see more of those going into the future. Never a happy coach, but there\u2019s some great stuff that we really enjoyed, but we\u2019ll continue to that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite conceding the first two goals, Buck said the coaching staff, like the players, were not too worried and backed the group to swing the momentum in favour of the home side.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was always going to be a little bit scrappy, first game, long time off all that kind of stuff,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were okay from a coaching lense and could clearly see that the players were still okay and that the comms through the bench that they knew where we got wrong. \u201cThen to fight back from there and only let one goal through after that point for the entire game probably speaks to the defensive effort from the group.\u201d<\/p>\n
After sitting out last season with a knee injury, Erone Fitzpatrick<\/a> booted two goals \u2013 the only multiple goalkicker in the match \u2013 from 13 disposals, while laying six tackles. Buck said the Irishwoman had learnt plenty from the coaches bench last season and she is now fitter and stronger than ever before. She was one of Carlton\u2019s best, with vice-captain Mimi Hill<\/a> (32 disposals, three marks, six tackles, six clearances and six inside 50s) comfortably best on ground.<\/p>\n \u201cMimi\u2019s had a fantastic preseason and I think when we see great players in the competition, you\u2019ll find a great preseason behind her,\u201d Buck said. \u201cReally happy with Mimi and her performance tonight. I thought she started the game really strongly and had a big first half, executed well and got our team going.\u201d<\/p>\n Equally pleased with some of the moments from teenage debutants Sophie McKay<\/a> and Poppy Scholz<\/a>, Buck said the group would look to build on its first up before and prepare for a massive clash with Hawthorn at Kinetic Stadium in Round 2.<\/p>\n \u201cLike I said before, young group, nine under 22,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re going to see ebbs and flows in our performance, that\u2019s just natural of all teams that are young. \u201cMy challenge is to try and make sure we don\u2019t see too much of that.<\/p>\n \u201cSo to go to Frankston and then Brisbane after that, two really challenging games. \u201cBut at the same time, what a great challenge to go and get after them. We\u2019ll be excited with what we did tonight, take the good bits, improve the bits we need to improve on and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CARLTON has kick-started its AFL Women\u2019s season with a win over arch-rival Collingwood at Ikon Park with coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,54240,54241,54242,54243,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-68463","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-erone-fitzpatrick","14":"tag-mimi-hill","15":"tag-poppy-scholz","16":"tag-sophie-mckay","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68463","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=68463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}