If it wasn’t impressive enough that Collingwood’s Sarah Rowe returned less than two weeks after collarbone surgery, she was one of the Magpies’ best on ground in their first win in almost a year.<\/p>\n
Collingwood edged out GWS with an eight-point win to get their first victory in 331 days on Saturday afternoon, 4.9 (33) to 4.1 (25).<\/p>\n
“I actually feel good, surprisingly. A medical miracle in ways,” Rowe told ABC Sport, just 16 days after a small plate was inserted in her collarbone.<\/p>\n
“I recovered really quickly from what was a serious injury at the time. So, I’m just delighted to be back out there and the medical team did so much work over the last two weeks to get back right, credit to them.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sarah Rowe finished with the third highest touches of the Magpies on Saturday. (Getty: Josh Chadwick\/AFL Photos)<\/p>\n
Rowe had 16 touches for Collingwood, equally second with Ruby Schleicher and behind Brit Bonnici’s game-high 23 disposals.<\/p>\n
“When you come back from injury, there’s always some level of being reluctant or having fear attached to that,” Rowe said.<\/p>\n
“And I said (to herself and team), no matter what, I’m not going to play with fear today because you put on your boots to play and you can’t shy away from the contest.<\/p>\n
“If you sign up to play, you have to go for it.”<\/p>\n
Rowe wasn’t the only AFLW player to impress on Saturday, with Sydney’s Chloe Molloy kicking seven goals in the Swans’ whopping 82-point victory over Gold Coast.<\/p>\n
Molly, in just her second game back from an ACL injury, backed up her four-goal haul in round one with an equal-record best.<\/p>\n
It moves Sydney up to second on the ladder with a percentage of 272.9.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Chloe Molloy kicked seven goals in Sydney’s win against Gold Coast. (Getty: Matt Roberts)<\/p>\n
Molloy also became the first player in the league to register five goals in a half, slotting the handful of majors in the first half at Carrara.<\/p>\n
Despite equalling the leagues record, Molloy jovially lamented her misses.<\/p>\n
“I kicked too many points for my liking. I’m spewing,” she told Fox Footy in reference to her three behinds.<\/p>\n
“There’s a few [kicks] on the run I missed, but I think it’s a reflection of the way we’re playing. We want to play fast footy.”<\/p>\n
In pole position is Melbourne, with a percentage of 520.7, who earlier in the day recorded a 74-point win against St Kilda. They beat the Western Bulldogs in round one by 48 points.<\/p>\n
Souring the demolition over the Saints, however, was star midfielder Olivia Purcell going down with what looks like a serious knee issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Over in Perth, reigning grand finalists Brisbane bounced back from their round one defeat against Hawthorn to defeat Fremantle by a thumping 70 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Next, Hawthorn and Carlton battle in the final match of the day at Frankston Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If it wasn’t impressive enough that Collingwood’s Sarah Rowe returned less than two weeks after collarbone surgery, she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89644,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[25912,66699,64,63,40356,66700,10133,66703,66702,66701,85,66704],"class_list":["post-89643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-aflw","tag-aflw-collingwood-v-gws","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chloe-molloy","tag-collingwood-aflw","tag-collingwood-magpies","tag-giants-aflw","tag-magpies-aflw","tag-sarah-rowe","tag-sports","tag-sydney-aflw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89643","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=89643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89643\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}