VFLW Match Report – Round 2 2022

eIt was a great start from Darebin Falcons, but it was a lively Casey Demons team who ran away with a comfortable win this week.  The Falcons got the first goal, and went into the first break with scores level.  Unfortunately the second quarter saw some lapses in concentration with Casey kicking away, and leading at half time by 24 points.  In the second half, the Falcons were unable to replicate the amazing comeback of last week, although kept their heads high with some great patches of play, and excellent defence keeping Casey to 2 goals in the third and goal-less in the last quarter. 

The Darebin side had 5 changes from last week with injuries forcing out Naomi Celebre, Angelique Reibelt, Simone Ruedin, and Millie Shone.  Nicole Callinan was also unavailable due to ALFW commitments.  This created space for Rachel Harris, Manaia Huta, Paije Kearney, Katie McAloon and Trinity Mills to get their first game for this season.

It was very exciting to see the Falcons come straight out of the blocks with lots of intent.  With some great ball movement, Trinity Mills’ shot on goal fell just short, but was marked by Sabine Cowley Du Parquet, who went back and kicked the first goal in the first 5 minutes.  With some great blocks and plenty of contest at the ball, the teams were evenly matched.  Casey came out with some increased pressure in the second quarter, and won some crucial clearances, putting on 5 goals in the quarter.  Mikayla Meyer kicked the Falcon’s only goal in response.  Despite good forward entries, the Falcons struggled hit the scoreboard.  Katie McAloon kicked a nice goal off a standing start midway through the 3rd, only to have the goal disallowed as a free kick was awarded to the Casey defender who was shepherding off the ball.

The leadership group continued to impress with Angelica Gogos getting a game high 26 disposals including 21 kicks, and Steph Simpson led really well up the ground showing her class and work rate to take 4 contested marks and 13 kicks.  The workload and effort was consistent across the game, with the Falcs backline dominating the tackle stats, including Gena Lawson-Tavan (8 tackles), Karly McNiece (8 tackles), Sabine Cowley Du Parquet (7 tackles) and Victoria Blackwood (6 tackles).  Meyer had another great game with some impressive running on the wing to be available for the outside play.

Coach Kate Tyndall reflected that it was really pleasing to see the intention of the side this week, and the strong start which was an improvement on the first week “Our ability to compete at the contest is good.  It is understandable though that our team is going to be under pressure in this competition. Today, we saw that as more pressure is applied, we fell away a bit from what we were trying to do.  We are hoping that as the season progresses, that we are able to implement our game style under duress.”

Next week’s match will be another big challenge for our VFLW squad, facing up to Hawthorn, who will be hoping to make a strong statement on the competition this year as they look join the AFLW competition in 2023.  The Falcons are looking to build on some individual progress and continue to lift their consistency and confidence as a team.

Next game: Saturday 26 February, Hawthorn v Darebin, 11am, La Trobe University, Bundoora

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