MARK the date in herstory. Saturday, September 17, 2022. Port Adelaide scored its first W in W.
At 2:19pm, Port Adelaide played its club song - with the Indigenous soundtrack - for the first time in victory in the AFLW with a commanding 66-point win against Sydney at Alberton Oval. Herstory in the making for a new team that now has a 1-1-2 win-draw-loss record in the AFLW and more reason to believe in its game style and all it could deliver in this inaugural season.
Minutes later, Lauren Arnell's "Inaugurals" sang "We Have The Power To Win" with the gusto that appropriately reflected a powerful win. A habit is in the making ...
"First win ... I'll be smiling for a while," said Port Adelaide captain Erin Phillips on closing her 50th AFLW game with a victory that will charge her team's appetite for more in this 10-game AFLW home-and-away season.
Well before the final siren set off celebrations at Alberton, - at 1.22pm to be precise - the joy of playing commanding football was reflected by Port Adelaide vice-captain Ange Foley's pride in her side had embraced the challenge of living up to the expectation of delivering the first W in W.
"We're having a good time out here to be honest ... we are playing with passion," Foley said while Port Adelaide skipped off Alberton Oval with a 21-point lead at half-time.
They were told to play hard - and they certainly hit hard with 80 tackles to maintain the Port Adelaide trademark of a team that will not allow its opponents to feel comfortable when it has temporary control of the ball.
If they needed affirmation for what senior coach Arnell's playbook will produce, this game delivered the vision - and with an exclamation mark on the scoreboard.
"We are going to take a lot of confidence out of this win," said midfielder Hannah Ewings, the stand-out player of the "herstoric" first win for the Port Adelaide senior women's team. "It has been building ... and this win means even more in Indigenous round."
The numbers on the Champion Data sheets leave a strong impression: Ten goals; overwhelming command of territory with a 41-12 advantage on inside-50s; bullish strength at the contest with a 33-19 edge at clearances and the ever-telling barometer of contested football reading 113-79 in Port Adelaide's favour.
Alberton Oval was drenched before the first bounce by rain - and then the tidal wave of Port Adelaide's crisp movement from clearances dominated by Hannah Ewings, Abbey Dowrick and Sachi Syme working to the reassuring hand taps of ruck Olivia Levicki in just her fourth game of Australian football after a sporting life in elite basketball.
This game underlined how Port Adelaide's list-management theme - for sustained success - has struck gold with the teenage duo of Ewings and Dowrick.
Ewings' growing command at stoppages is marked on the Champion statistic sheets - nine clearances. If the under-18 All-Australian had not claimed her Rising Star nomination in round 3, the Whyalla recruit would have been assured of the honour for her eye-catching 19-disposal game against Sydney.
Ewings - after a run of behinds on her career scoring sheet - has finally added her first goal in AFLW to her growing resume, from a "Hail Mary" kick outside 50 during the third term. The breakthrough goal set off a rush of three goals within 10 minutes across the third and last quarters to leave no doubt the North Adelaide recruit was the star of this show.
Although, Dowrick - the Rising Star nominee from round one - also was in the frame for that title.
On a day when the Sydney midfield was challenged by seeing double from the teenage tandem of Ewings and Dowrick, there was the inevitable theme of whatever Ewings does, Dowrick will do it as well. There was the pairing of long-range goals from the duo during the third term. Dowrick also delivered from outside 50 moments after Ewings as Port Adelaide built a four-goal charge during the third term to match the four-goal opening.
Together, Ewings and Dowrick collected 43 touches, four goals, 12 clearances and a defining 25 contested possessions. Port Adelaide's AFLW future is in very good - and tough - hands.
Port Adelaide honoured its inaugural captain - and its first signing - in Phillips' milestone game. And Phillips' form - after a short pre-season turnaround and a tough start with a corked leg in Port Adelaide's opener against West Coast in Perth - is building, along with her influence.
Phillips finished with a season-high 16 touches. But the more-telling figures are from her hand being in eight of Port Adelaide's scores - and five of the 10 goals. It might be difficult to concede her to the midfield now.
Phillips had the most-commanding start to her 50th AFLW game, with a game-high eight touches in the first term while assisting in both of Port Adelaide's opening scores from Dowrick and De Melo before putting herself on the scoresheet with a behind.
The first - that ended in a behind from a set shot from Dowrick - came from the near perfect that underlines why Port Adelaide can afford the "luxury" of the league's first star working inside the 50-metre arc rather than in the centre square. Basketball convert Levicki won the first tap, round 3 Rising Star Ewings the first clearance that went by kick to the leading Phillips. The captain's pass to Dowrick reaffirmed the "team first" theme - and Phillips' alertness that will torment AFLW defences while the Olympian works in attack as cover for the loss of go-to forward Gemma Houghton (ankle).
That awareness paid off in another goal assist in the ninth minute of the last term when Phillips tapped the Sherrin forward while the Sydney defence expected the fading kick of Maria Moloney to be rushed for a behind. Phillips' touch set up Kate Surman at the top of the goalsquare for Port Adelaide's fifth goal of the match - and a 32-point lead that never waned.
Port Adelaide's search for the "connection" in attack was complete in the most-assertive first quarter in which theydominated with 14 inside-50s. It was an overwhelming territory battle won by Port Adelaide that conceded just one entry to its defensive 50. There was a constant, repetitive charge of surge plays from centre to goalsquare. And when Sydney did try to rebound, the tackling ways of Arnell's team made it too difficult to escape.
This was highlighted with Port Adelaide's second and third goals. Dowrick's harrassment on the boundary line at the top of the 50-metre arc set up the turnover that was finished with Jade Halfpenny scoring her first AFLW goal. Debutante Sarah Goodwin's tackle that won a holding-the-ball free kick ended with Brittany Perry scoring the third goal on the siren to give Port Adelaide a 21-point lead.
There was just one score in the second term - a behind from Ewings from a set shot from a free kick - when Port Adelaide worked against the strong wind that started to turn from the north to the west after quarter-time.
Port Adelaide's biggest score in four games of AFLW also was matched by a defence that did not concede a goal - and around alert defender Indy Tahau and the manic tackling of Ebony O'Dea has a tough back unit that is not easily cracked.
PORT ADELAIDE V SYDNEY
PORT ADELAIDE 3.3 3.4 8.6 10.8 (68)
SYDNEY 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.2 (2)
BEST - Port Adelaide: Ewings, Dowrick, Phillips, Levicki, Tahau, Foley, Yorston.
GOALS - Port Adelaide: Ewings 3, Perry 2, De Melo, Dowrick, Halfpenny, Surman, Teakle.
INJURY: Nil.
CROWD: 2741 at Alberton Oval.
NEXT: Gold Coast at Bond University, 12.40pm (SA time) Sunday.
