Brianna Davey inspires wayward Collingwood Magpies to convincing win over Geelong Cats

Notorious slow starters in their first three years under former coach Wayne Siekman, the Magpies have now won their opening two games in consecutive seasons under his replacement Stephen Symonds, who guided them to their first finals appearance last year.

And if their first couple of performances of 2021 are anything to go by, they should expect to feature in the post-season again. Meanwhile, the Cats have now lost 11 of 16 games since entering the AFLW.

Davey was instrumental in the result and produced a powerhouse performance in the middle of the ground, which saw her finish with 25 touches (11 contested), four clearances, eight inside-50s, four tackles, four marks and a goal.

She was well supported by Brittany Bonnici while Ruby Schleicher was superb in defence and Sharni Norder was influential in the ruck. Rebecca Webster and Olivia Purcell were Geelong’s best.

The Cats dominated the territory battle in the opening term, but undid all their hard work with a few squandered opportunities on the goal line that were compounded by silly 50-metre and double 50-metre penalties, which gifted Collingwood their first two goals.

The Magpies were the much stronger side in the second quarter, but despite enjoying nine of the first 12 inside 50s, including the first six of the period, they failed to capitalise, managing just 1.4 for the term, with a Chloe Molloy goal in the final minute before half-time going some way to make up forgettable shots on goal from Aishling Sheridan, Sarah Rowe and Norder that were off line.

Collingwood did all the attacking again in the third quarter, but again failed to make the Cats pay the price, managing just three behinds, while Molloy (twice) and Sophie Alexander failed to score from set shots, as the home team took only a 10-point lead into the final change, despite having double the scoring shots (10-5).

If it was going to be one player to put the result beyond doubt, it was going to be Davey and that’s exactly what she did when she roved the pack with aplomb early in the final quarter before ramming it home from 30m out to give her team an unassailable lead.

Close shave, but Barber joins first-kick-first-goal club
Geelong debutant Olivia Barber won’t forget her first AFLW goal in a hurry. After just 25 seconds of play, her teammate Richelle Cranston superbly smothered Collingwood defender Schleicher’s kick in the Cats’ goal square, and with the ball trickling back towards Geelong’s goal line, Barber was quick to pounce. However, after “fresh-airing” her first attempt at goal, the youngster lost balance but still managed to accidentally back-heel the ball through for a six-pointer on her way down. All that was missing was the Benny Hill music!

Dazzing Davey dudded at the death
Davey’s outstanding performance could have included a second goal, and what a goal it would’ve been. After collecting the ball on the half-forward flank in the second term, she ran rings around Sophie Van De Heuvel, selling candy to the spellbound Cat twice, before unloading from the boundary line. It was bouncing towards goal, but got rushed in the nick of time, denying her a spectacular goal of the year contender.

Mirror image Cats
After the Cats went scoreless in their opening three quarters last week against North Melbourne, before managing 1.3 in the final term, they started brightly against Collingwood with 2.2 in the first term, but could only manage another two behinds in the final three quarters.