Hawthorn AFLW Senior Coach Daniel Webster spoke after his first win in charge of the Hawks, in the club’s highest score and biggest winning margin in its history.
Webster shared his thoughts on the Week 1 victory and where they can build on that performance ahead of this weekend’s match up with Collingwood.
We summarised the key points from his press conference below.
On building upon Week 1 win over Carlton
“Very good performance, it was very tricky conditions, very windy down at Frankston. But the players put in a good performance, it was good to see, we obviously worked hard on our game over the preseason. Coming into Round 1 there’s always a lot of nerves and anxiousness around how we’re going to perform and what things will look like. So to be able to put on a good performance and run the game out strongly was really pleasing and we’ll take a lot of confidence out of that moving into this week.
“I think to be honest we’re constantly learning and building, we’re at a point where we’re trying to win games and then it’s about learning how to win games consistently and that will be the challenge of backing up a good performance. But there’s a lot of things we can work on in all aspects of our game and that’s going to be ongoing throughout the year I imagine.”
On Gilroy and Sherriff's 50-game milestone
“They've been massive, Sherriff as we touched on, has come in and is playing a midfield role for us and just provides a lot of drive and run. A great ball user, but a great person as well, she’s fun to have around the club, she’s cheeky which is good. I think where she can go with her game and where I think she’ll get to this year will be at a very high level so I’m really excited to see that journey. Gilly is just fantastic, a lot of fire in the belly and very passionate about the football club and the team and just wants to have success so badly and she sets such a great example in that. You can see it on the weekend, her competitiveness is through the roof and she was able to impact the scoreboard on the weekend and she sets the tone for the team, she’s a great asset to have.”
On the atmosphere at the club this week
“It’s unbelievable, it’s a great place to be like anytime you’re at a football club and you’re winning games of football, it’s really healthy and fun. It’s exciting to see the men’s program doing so well and we’ll be supporting as much as we can on Friday night so it’s going to be a massively big game and a good one to watch. For us, just great to start the season, it’s a good vibe after you get an early win in the season and I think it helps kind of calm everyone down a little bit and now we’re in the rhythm of the season so now it’s about resetting ourselves and then building back up for this weekend’s game.”
On a first-time match up with Collingwood
“It’s a big game, any game against Collingwood always is and hopefully there’ll be a big crowd out this weekend and hopefully a lot of Hawthorn supporters out there making a lot of noise. They were pretty good on the weekend, I know they lost to Sydney, but they had a lot of scoring shots, a lot of opportunities and they’ve got some big-name players in their side. It’s going to be a real interesting matchup, and they pride themselves on the contest so it’ll be interesting to see if we can match them in there and then try and get some run on the outside and see if we can test them in that regard.”
Watch Webster’s full press conference below.
