VFLW: Hawthorn knuckles down to blue collar win over Darebin

Hawthorn knuckled down and went back to basics on Saturday, grafting its way to the first success of its premiership defence with a 42-point win over Darebin at the Bill Lawry Oval in Northcote.

Hawthorn’s Kirby Bentley clears the ball from Darebin’s Molly Eastman..Picture:Rob Leeson.

Hawthorn knuckled down and went back to basics on Saturday, grafting its way to the first success of its premiership defence with a 42-point win over Darebin at the Bill Lawry Oval in Northcote.

The reigning VFLW champions had drifted away from the blue collar efforts that earned it last year's flag and coach Patrick Hill said that message had been delivered and then addressed on the training track during the week.

“Every year you need to re-jig your ball movement a bit because teams become aware of how you go about it,” he said. “The downside is you can sometimes forget the basics and fundamentals.

“Against Collingwood last week, our tackle pressure and our hard ball gets were at such a low level.”

After a tight opening half, with the Hawks wasting a number of scoring chances, there was less than a kick in it.

But, after halftime, the Hawks held the home side scoreless while grinding out an 8.13 (61) to 3.1 (19) win.

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Hawthorn coach Patrick Hill calls the shots. Picture:Rob Leeson.

“Two goals came from that pressure,” Hill said. “And the girls started sharing the ball around and started moving the ball better.”

Jessica Sibley kicked two goals for the Hawks with singles coming from Nicole Cormack, Pip Peschke, Meg Hutchins, Emily Gilder, Stephanie Carroll and Olivia Flanagan.

Flanagan earned plenty of praise from her coach, returning to form after a slow start to the season, while Abbey Tanner and Rosie Dillon joined Cormack, Gilder and Peschke in being named Hawthorn’s best half-dozen.

“Meg Hutchins continued her stellar season, she’s been in our two or three best players all year,” Hill said.

Gippsland Power NAB League captain Maddison Shaw replaced the injured Georgia MacPherson and acquitted herself admirably on debut

Hawthorn will play host to Williamstown this Saturday at Box Hill City Oval (11.30 start)

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