AFLW Round 1 – Melbourne v GWS: History doesn’t repeat for determined Dees

Melbourne vs GWS Giants
5:05pm 3^rd February
Casey Fields, Melbourne
Alyce Collett

 

As the Split Enz song famously says, history never repeats. Fortunately for Melbourne, this rang true this afternoon at Casey Fields. It wasn’t pretty, but they defeated the GWS Giants by 6 points to start their season off on the right track.

 

The first quarter was a lot closer than many, including this reporter, anticipated. The Dees had many more inside 50s than the Giants but they just weren’t able to capitalise. The Giants got the first goal, but then the Dees were able to peg one back through Shelley Scott. The Giants got a second goal late in the term to take a four point lead into the first break. The Dees did not seem like the dominant, polished side they were against the Pies in a practise match a few weeks ago.

 

Unfortunately for the Dees the second quarter was exactly like the first. The Dees had most of the chances and were just not able to capitalise, whereas the Giants made the most of their minimal chances. The only goal of the quarter was kicked by the Giants off the boot of Pheobe McWilliams, and the Giants’ lead had extended out to nine points at half time. At this point I was getting more and more nervous as I did not want a repeat of last year’s round one loss or last year’s loss to the Giants.

 

My nerves eased a little early in the third quarter as the Dees kicked the first three goals of the last quarter via Richelle Cranston and debutants Kate Hore and Teagan Cunningham. Frustratingly the Giants were able to kick two goals and maintain their lead, so I was still quite nervous leading into the last quarter.

 

Thankfully for me and my fellow Dees fans, history did not repeat itself. The Dees were able to kick the first two goals of the last quarter, but the Giants were able to kick one of their own via Pheobe McWilliams. For much of the last quarter it was looking like the first draw of the new season was going to come in the second game of the season, but the Dees got a late goal to make sure this didn’t happen. When the final siren sounded, feelings of excitement and relief swept over me.

 

For much of the game it looked like history was going to repeat itself and the Giants were going to win again, but I was glad that did not happen. For most of the match, I was planning to have to write a report titled ‘History never repeats – well, unless your Melbourne”. Full credit to the Giants though, they seem like a team that can be quite competitive this season.

 

Melbourne 1.2   1.3   4.3   7.3 (45)
GWS            2.0   3.0   5.2   6.3 (39)

 

GOALS
Melbourne:  Cranston 3, Scott 2, Cunningham, Hore
GWS Giants: McWilliams 3, Barclay 2, Staunton

Umpires: Gibson, Johansen, Curtis
Crowd: 5,100