The pride of South Australia: the AFLW’s state-based draft, gives us a State of Origin feel every time we play

With Adelaide crushing Fremantle by 42 points on Saturday night, Crows joint vice-captain Courtney Cramey gives a run down of where the game was won

• Cramey on Crows inaccuracy
• Goal-feast makes everyone happy

FOOTBALL talent from the two largest geographical areas of Australia — Western Australia and a combined South Australia/Northern Territory — battled it out on Saturday night in the Top End as the Crows, made up of girls from SA/NT, took on Fremantle, made up of talent from across WA.

I’m predicting that eventually the AFLW will become a national draft pool as it grows and develops. But, currently, the state-based drafts that have been held over the past three seasons have meant the majority of players stay in their home states. And because of that, a special “State of Origin” spirit and atmosphere was alive and well on the weekend.

With figures released on Sunday showing female participation has grown by 14.2 per cent — a major driver in the 6.5 per cent growth of the game overall — means the AFLW is looking very healthy moving forward.

Crows co-captain Erin Phillips was in superb form against the Fremantle Dockers at TIO Stadium on Saturday night. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Media

The central corridor showed that our depth of talent is strong with Territory dynamo Danielle Ponter (with her famous footballing family links Michael Long and Cyril Rioli), putting on a show in front of a home crowd.

Playing down back in her previous games, “DP” was moved forward and kicked two goals in a display that was very impressive for a first-year player, demonstrating her natural silky skills in conditions much like a wet weather game of footy.

With the heat policy enacted due to the humidity, extended breaks were enforced and it was a tough contested game early with us leading Fremantle by only three points going into the halftime break.

Erin Phillips continued to show her dominance and Anne Hatchard’s contested work showed she is the most improved player in AFLW this season and on track for a maiden All-Australian berth.

Crows tall midfielder Anne Hatchard comes up against Dockers’ Philipa Seth during Adelaide’s win at TIO Stadium in Darwin. Hatchard is in career-best form and must be pushing for All-Australian selection. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Media

In what was a dominating second half of footy we piled on the goals and kept Fremantle scoreless in the third term.

The benefits from a hard, long preseason kicked into gear, thanks to our brilliant high performance team, and we ran over Fremantle in the fourth to get a healthy percentage boost in a comfortable win — 9.11 (65) to 3.5 (23).

The win puts us in second place as we shift our minds to a top-of-the-Conference-A-ladder clash against North Melbourne at Victoria’s Avalon Oval on Sunday.

It will also be a battle of the two teams in the comp that both have partnerships spread across another state/territory, with North drawing on talent from Tasmania.

Courtney Cramey in action during the 2019 NAB AFLW round four match between the Adelaide Crows and Fremantle Dockers at TIO Stadium on February 23, 2019 in Darwin. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Media

The Kangaroos are in a healthy position coming off the back of a hard-fought, four-point win against Melbourne and they retain their undefeated status.

That’s nothing new to us, like we did against an undefeated Fremantle we will continue to play our contested, team game of footy. This one will be the game of the round.