Hawthorn took another big step in the lead-up to its inaugural AFLW season by playing as a full squad for the first time in an internal trial at Bunjil Bagora, Waverley Park on Saturday.
The trial comprised of four full AFLW quarters and was played against a team largely made up of Hawks VFLW players.
Senior Coach Bec Goddard said the purpose of the hit-out was to implement structures and continue to establish on-field connections.
“We just wanted to play as a whole team together and start to see some ball movement that we’ve been working on over the pre-season,” Goddard said.
“Rather than playing against each other, we wanted to start working together and that’s what we got, we had a great hit-out today with no injuries and four really solid quarters.”
With the Hawks playing an AFLW pre-season game against Richmond in the coming weeks, Goddard said Saturday’s trial proved to be good preparation.
“We didn’t really care about what the scoreline was in the end, it was more about the effort and execution of what we’ve been training,” she said.
“We had a couple of stand-out performances and we also saw the draftees come into the side and make a real impact along with more experienced players like Tilly Lucas-Rodd in the midfield.
“It was a really good day and we’re looking forward to playing some more practice matches before we hit Round 1.”
While finding it hard to single players out due to the solid nature of the hit-out, Goddard did recognise a few key performers:
Tahlia Fellows
“She played up forward for us and kicked a lot of behinds initially and then ended up kicking about six goals in the end. I loved her run and the way that she set up. She was very diligent in her standards of behaviour and what we expect on the field so it was a pretty complete performance from Tahlia.”
Tilly Lucas-Rodd
“Tilly was really organised. She got our midfield really well organised, she set up and drove standards from right inside the midfield. That’s what we expect, we knew that’s what Tilly was going to bring to us.”
Jess Duffin
“Jess Duffin did a couple of different things for us today which were really important. She sets the tone on the kind of behaviours that we want to see on the field and she’s not afraid to give really strong feedback when things aren’t happening that she expects to happen. It’s like having an extra coach on the field.”
Draftees
“I think the draftees overall were really good and it was beneficial for them to come up against an opponent. That would’ve been a pretty intimidating thing to do to come in and play for the first time as a whole team but they filled their roles really well.”
