The Brisbane Lions AFLW team celebrate the win against the Adelaide Crows in Round Eight of season seven (Picture: AFL)
One of the best-match-ups of this season was the tantilising game between the Brisbane Lions and the Adelaide Crows last Friday night at Metricon Stadium. Although the result was fairly one-sided with the Lions demolishing the Crows, the Lions are brimming with confidence at the prospect of facing Hawthorn for the first time in competition history.
The Lions are riding high with their quest for their second premiership and third grand finals appearance within reach. Having played eight games and winning seven (Fremantle, Giants, Suns, Melbourne, Essendon, North Melbourne and Adelaide), their only loss came against the Tigers in Round Five.
Speaking exclusively to The Inner Sanctum, Brisbane star winger Orla O’Dwyer explained the feeling after defeating the reigning premiers and how they plan to tackle their first clash with the Hawks.
“It’s important to get wins and get secure wins and to play to get in a good position for finals, I think it will give us great confidence going into this weekend after the Adelaide game but I still think that there are lots of things still to improve on and just another great team performance is what we need,” O’Dwyer told The Inner Sanctum.
Sitting on top of the ladder, the Lions are in the box seat for a top four position come the finals which would result in a number of home finals. O’Dwyer explains how the Lions play Metricon Stadium which could be a fortress for them come finals pending the availability of the Gabba.
“I think that was a huge win that we needed over Adelaide last week and get to play down at Metricon which is a wide, big stadium which we love that we could really use our run.
When looking ahead at the match-up against the Hawks, it could be a danger game if the Lions are too complacent.
The Hawks have been a big surprise packet this season winning three of their last five matches against Sydney, West Coast and Port Adelaide. Wanting to perform to farewell AFLW veteran Jess Duffin as well as wanting to finish their maiden season on a high, the Hawks will be wanting to cause a massive upset against Brisbane come Saturday afternoon.
O’Dwyer describes the approach that they will be taking into the maiden clash with Hawthorn and how they plan to combat them.
“[Playing against] Hawthorn, coming into this weekend [they] are a new team, an expansion team and they’ve had some very tough opposition the last couple of weeks,” she said.
“I think we’re really excited to play them, I think we’ve quickly learned after that Richmond game not to take anything for granted. We see it as well with [the] results throughout the whole league this season that if you do switch off for a quarter or two, [that] other teams can get on top and obviously with the ladder being so close.
“Going down to Melbourne is always tough with the travel but hopefully it’s a good game and we do deliver that team performance.”
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