LAUREN Arnell knows one quality of her "Inaugurals" cannot be dulled nor will dwindle in defeat, even a hefty loss in the first AFLW Showdown: Their desire to become the best.
Port Adelaide's newest team, the AFLW seniors, lost AFLW Showdown I at Adelaide Oval on Friday night by 10 goals while taking note of how an AFLW premiership team plays with seven seasons of experience.
"All the players want to do is get better," Arnell said at Adelaide Oval after the first AFLW derby in South Australia turned into a one-sided encounter under bright lights.
"They want to be better - all the time.
"There is complete buy-in on that. And that is where they are right now."
The 60-point loss will serve as a challenge to get better rather than a burden carried across the four remaining matches of the AFLW home-and-away series.
"I am very proud of the group of young women we have in our club - and I know they take plenty of learning from every single game they play and they stick together," Arnell said.
"I look at our kids. We have had two Rising Stars (Abbey Dowrick and Hannah Ewings) already. Ella Boag made her debut tonight and was brilliant on the wing. Amelie Borg as a key defender, a 17-year-old kid. I could keep talking about these young kids. They have put six games of AFLW behind them. Each individual is gaining from the experience. And the team is getting more games together and learning of each other's strengths and weapons.
"We did come up against a benchmark of this competition. And we will learn plenty.
"You have to take lessons out of every single game. The lessons we have taken from all six games have placed us well - and we will continue to do that.
"There is plenty to learn.
"We are disappointed that we were not able to execute parts of the game we had in the plan we took into the game. Adelaide showed it was the better side.
"There are areas we can get better at ... and certainly the start of the game is included in that."
Adelaide's experience - both in the AFLW and of Adelaide Oval - did count in Showdown I.
"We clearly saw the triple-premiership team that Adelaide is - an experienced and hardened football group against a young team," Arnell said.
Port Adelaide lost the clearances on a 1-3 rate (33-11 overall) to leave Adelaide in control of the game's agenda.
"Certainly getting beaten like that at stoppages has a pretty heavy impact (on the game's flow), particularly with the way Adelaide set up with the ball in attack," Arnell said.
"We pulled a few levers tonight (to change the midfield set-ups) ... but Adelaide was very good."
Arnell paid tribute to South Australian football fans for supporting the first AFLW Showdown that adds to the grand rivalry between Port Adelaide and Adelaide.
"It speaks a lot to South Australian footy; we had a big celebration of women's sport tonight with generation on generation of female sporting heroes in South Australia honoured tonight," Arnell said. "We had more than 20,000 here at Adelaide Oval that made for an epic crowd and a celebration tonight. It is something both clubs can be proud of."
Port Adelaide now has a 1-1-4 win-loss record.
"We are very much looking forward to next week," said Arnell who will take her "Inaugurals" to Frankston to play another of the new entries to the 18-team AFLW, Hawthorn, on Saturday.
Port Adelaide reported no injury at the end of the game. Midfielder Hannah Ewings suffered a sore back from a heavy collision in a marking contest but finished the match.
