Adelaide remain undefeated after upsetting the Western Bulldogs in Friday night’s AFL Women’s encounter. A bumper crowd of 7,669 fans poured into Whitten Oval, but the hard-edged visitors impressed to win an entertaining match 7.6 (48) to 2.11 (23).

Adelaide’s Ebony Marinoff earned a Rising Star nomination last week and put in another eye-catching display with 17 disposals and seven tackles. Crows co-captain Erin Phillips, coming off an a first-up three-goal performance, played another starring role with 16 touches.

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For the Bulldogs, Emma Kearney (23 disposals), Hannah Scott (19) and Ellie Blackburn (17) were important, but the Crows had a more-even contribution. The Dogs were left to rue missed opportunities after opening the game strongly. They peppered the goals early, but failed to capitalise, kicking a wasteful five behinds in the first term.

The Crows made them pay through Sarah Perkins, the full-forward’s goal sending her side into the first break with a three-point lead. Dogs skipper Katie Brennan opened the scoring in the second quarter, but the visitors finished the half well to edge 11 points in front.

The third quarter followed a similar script to the first two, with the home side starting well only to lose ground in the face of a Crows counter-attack. Adelaide led by just three points midway through the term, but rattled home with three goals to open up a match-winning 20-point lead at the last break.

The Crows rounded out the impressive performance with the only goal of the final term to hand the Bulldogs, one of the main AFLW premiership fancies, their first defeat.

“I think the big thing about us is that, while we respect every opposition that we play, we always make it about us,” Adelaide coach Bec Goddard said. “We’re always talking about what we can do and how we can get better as a team. It was really important for the girls to focus on us (against the Dogs).”

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Bulldogs coach Paul Groves lamented his side’s inability to make the Crows pay when they had the upper hand. “We had a couple of shots early in the first quarter when we had the breeze and, if you don’t kick them, you’re going to be up against it,” Groves said.

“The momentum swings so much, so you need to take those opportunities. But their pressure was amazing ... it just shows that if you’re off at all in this comp, you’re going to get beaten.”



