The Brisbane Lions face the all-conquering Kangaroos in the AFLW Grand Final tonight (Saturday) at 7.45pm EDST.
It should be a cracking match between two fierce rivals. Brisbane beat North in 2023 and North took revenge in 2024 to dominate Grand final.
The Lions, who can be free-scoring, will take it right up to a champion side which hasn’t been beaten this season but has had to ward off significant challenges in this finals campaign, in particular finishing over the top of Melbourne in a desperate and entertaining final quarter to win their Preliminary Final.
Remarkably, and I just can’t see this happening again, if the Lions win, both NRL and NRLW premiership trophies, and the both AFL and AFLW premiership cups will reside in Brisbane.
We’d love to receive a match report from one of our writers or, even better, from a new writer.
If you’d like to write something, contact John Harms: [email protected] or 0417 635030
Read Peter Fuller’s preview towards the end of his piece on AFLW 2025 HERE.
And here’s a link to the ABC’s expansive preview of the game compiled by Chris De Silva.
About John Harms
JTH is a writer, publisher, speaker, historian. He is founder and contributing editor of The Footy Almanac and footyalmanac.com.au. He has written columns and features for numerous publications. His books include Confessions of a Thirteenth Man, Memoirs of a Mug Punter, Loose Men Everywhere, Play On, The Pearl: Steve Renouf's Story and Life As I Know It (with Michelle Payne). He can be contacted [email protected] He is married to Susan. They have three school-age kids - Theo, Anna, Evie. He might not be the worst putter in the world but he's in the worst four. His ambition was to lunch for Australia but it clashed with his other ambition - to shoot his age.
It was a cracking game belying the scoreline. Im not a watcher of AFLW but I saw the last half and read some stories in The Age about North this week. The Irish girl, Brough, has a wonderful backstory and the hedgehog award to the best-performed each week is fantastic.
Im a North AFLW supporter now.
Yep, Roos are a most deserved Premier, after a stellar season.
I was bemused by your observation, Harmsy, re the Roos having to “ward off significant challenges in this finals campaign”. Not in the first final they didn’t. You would have thought (hoped) the mighty Hawks learned something from the last round of the H&W season when NM smashed us by 50 points. Our final score in that miserable game barely scrapped past their score at quarter time! The less said about the first week of the finals the better. We were crushed by the brute force and ruthless efficiency of this powerhouse team reminiscent of their 70s VFLM juggernaut.
Congrats Norths, on your GF win and back to back premierships. Now to focus on 2026!
Cheers
Yes, RK, I was thinking of the Melbourne game but the Hawks were in it for the first six minutes. Actually, I thought they hung in there, despite no avenues to goal, until the Roos ran away.
True, and I did go a bit hard on our Hawks (for the joke of course). As you say, as the game was played I was impressed with our play and frustrated we couldn’t get it past the half forward line but we didn’t give up. The Melbourne Roos prelim was a ripper, Dees third quarter especially. Cheers