Adelaide’s AFLW premiership coach Bec Goddard tips Brisbane to roar in women’s final

BEC Goddard can see the Brisbane Lions rising from AFLW runners-up to premiers ... but the Adelaide Crows coach is not sure she can watch her team’s reign end.

• Brennan’s fight for equality
• Conti ready to spark Dogs
• Randall by a street as Crows club champion

BEC Goddard expects Craig Starcevich on Saturday to join her in football’s history books as the AFLW’s only premiership coaches.

But the Crows AFLW coach is not sure she can watch Brisbane beat the top-ranked Western Bulldogs, to convert the Lions’ disappointment of losing last year’s grand final to a celebration at Princes Park.

And Goddard can — if she chooses — watch the game live at the inner Melbourne ground after being at the Crows’ AFL season-opener against Essendon at Etihad Stadium on Friday night.

“I might go shopping (before taking the early evening flight to Adelaide),” said Goddard, emphasising how raw the end of the Crows’ reign as inaugural AFLW champions remains within the team group.

AFLW premiership coach Bec Goddard expects Brisbane to be all smiles in their second attempt to win the national women’s football league grand final after losing to Adelaide last season. The Lions play the Western Bulldogs at Princes Park on Saturday in the second AFLW grand final. Picture: Scott Barbour (Getty Images)

Goddard’s tip — “Brisbane in a low-scoring grand final,” she says — works against the result in the second week of the seven-game qualifying season in which the Bulldogs beat the Lions by nine points, 5.3 (33) to 3.6 (24).

“Two different games styles,” notes Goddard of the rivals in the second AFLW grand final. “Craig has the Lions play slingshot football, congesting the field — and the Western Bulldogs will not like that.”

The AFLW on Saturday will close its second season to resume in January with expansion to 10 teams — with new teams from North Melbourne and Geelong.

As Goddard, who has exhausted her leave with the Australian Federal Police to coach the Crows in the past two years, waits to learn of her future in the AFLW, she will continue to progress her coaching resume with a role in the NEAFL men’s competition.

Goddard will return to Canberra to be an assistant coach with the Canberra Demons senior men’s team.

Her return to West Lakes for the third AFLW season remains unresolved. Any short-term contract to coach the Crows women’s team will have to be dovetailed with unpaid leave from the AFP.

“Talks with the club are positive,” Goddard said. “And I love the girls, so I’d certainly like to be there for season three.”

[e-mail]