Chloe Molloy has played a starring role in her long-awaited return to the AFLW, helping fire Sydney to a 20-point win over Richmond.<\/p>\n
Swans co-captain Molloy slotted four goals on return from a knee reconstruction as debutant Zippy Fish lived up to the hype in the 8.10 (58) to 5.8 (38) win at North Sydney Oval on Friday night.<\/p>\n
It was star forward Molloy’s first match since tearing her anterior cruciate ligament at training in September 2024 \u2014 just one game into last season.<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old picked up where she left off and combined well with maturing midfielder Montana Ham (18 disposals, six score involvements) in front of 4,126 fans.<\/p>\n
Fish, drafted with pick number five last year, lived up to her name by flaunting her blistering pace from half-back, and finished with 25 disposals and nine intercept possessions.<\/p>\n
Monique Conti was Richmond’s shining light with 32 touches, as Caitlin Greiser and Rebecca Miller led the way on the scoreboard with two goals each.<\/p>\n
Molloy and Greiser had faced off in an early goalscoring shootout as the Swans started the more daring side.<\/p>\n
Greiser opened the scoring with a long bomb from the 50m arc, before Molloy responded with her first goal on return to help set up a two-point lead at quarter-time.<\/p>\n
Molloy slotted her second after a laser kick from Ham, but Greiser \u2014 mentored by Carlton icon and Tigers specialist coach Brendan Fevola \u2014 responded to keep the home side at bay.<\/p>\n
Sydney wrestled back momentum when young gun Cynthia Hamilton, after overcoming a pre-season knee injury, sold candy not once, but twice, to build a nine-point lead at the main break.<\/p>\n
Molloy used her body well to outmanoeuvre Tigers defender Katelyn Cox and kick her third goal, before Sydney broke away when Holly Cooper slotted two goals in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Richmond, which made the finals last season, will look to bounce back when it hosts the Western Bulldogs next weekend, while Sydney take on Gold Coast.<\/p>\n
Saturday will feature three games, including Geelong \u2014 North Melbourne at Kardinia Park, GWS \u2014 Essendon in Canberra and traditional rivals Western Bulldogs and Melbourne at Whitten Oval.<\/p>\n
AAP\/ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chloe Molloy has played a starring role in her long-awaited return to the AFLW, helping fire Sydney to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[56024,25912,64,63,40356,56025,56027,56026,56023,9664,6858,588,85,7200,52784],"class_list":{"0":"post-71455","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-acl","9":"tag-aflw","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-chloe-molloy","13":"tag-knee-reconstruction","14":"tag-monique-conti","15":"tag-montana-ham","16":"tag-north-sydney-oval","17":"tag-return","18":"tag-richmond","19":"tag-sport","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-sydney-swans","22":"tag-zippy-fish"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71455","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=71455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}