History makers: North Melbourne’s perfect AFLW season

It was the best display of AFLW football Craig Starcevich had ever seen.

Unfortunately, it was against his own team on the biggest day of the year, as North Melbourne asserted its dominance on the Princes Park deck on Saturday evening, and took home its first AFLW premiership.

It was in the first quarter that the bulk of the damage was done, both on the scoreboard and in the minds of those on the field. And importantly, it was the waxing and waning throughout the game of the Roos’ players, each stepping up when required.

Early in the game it was the likes of Tess Craven, Ruby Tripodi and Emma King who set the tone, before star names like Jasmine Garner, Emma Kearney and Ash Riddell took over.

Pressure, uncontested possession control and an elite defence were the building blocks of North Melbourne’s maiden AFLW premiership.

The pressure game

In Starcevich’s eyes, North Melbourne “pressured (Brisbane) into submission”, creating a lack of control for the reigning premier right from the opening stoppage.

With increased fitness compared to the same game last year, and an innate ability to spread and contract at the contest depending on the situation, the Roos greatly restricted Brisbane’s capacity to move the ball to the outside, as it is wont to do.

Through that pressure and limiting of space, the Lions became uncharacteristically fumbly, upon which North Melbourne capitalised.

This willingness to worry the opposition has been a growing element the Roos have slowly added to their game in recent years, reaching a peak in 2024. Their average of 80.2 tackles wasn’t just leading the competition this year, but proved to be the second-highest average in AFLW history.

That pressure standard was set early in the piece on Saturday, with 22 first-quarter tackles, despite registering 30 more disposals than Brisbane for the term. It was led by eventual best on ground medallist Garner (five), and physical midfielder Mia King (three), but crucially, 14 different Roos laid at least one tackle for the quarter.

Brisbane was on the back foot, and in need of some composure.

By the final siren, just two players in the blue and white had failed to register a tackle, with Garner’s 13 and Ash Riddell’s seven leading the way.

Controlling the ball in space

Where Brisbane couldn’t effectively get the ball to the outside to find a semblance of control, North Melbourne did it with ease. The home side’s capacity to neatly win uncontested possession, then chain that end-to-end, sliced the Lions up, leaving the back line all at sea.

“Once they do get their hands on it, they’re super controlling the ball in the back half before they then speed it up and go forward,” Starcevich said.

“They all get involved, their half-backs, their mids, and they just keep control of the ball and give up control only at the last minute when they finally decide to go and launch an attack. So it’s a pretty good style.”

Reliably able to win the contested ball, where North Melbourne then thrives is through its uncontested possession, ultimately finishing with 79 more than Brisbane for the match — the largest uncontested possession differential in any AFLW finals in history.

Uncontested possession differential

Through this calm kick-mark transition, the Roos also finished the match with 39 more marks than Brisbane, and 17 more inside 50s, effectively keeping the Lions chasing their tails for the duration.

Around the contest, Riddell worked as the target for those winning clearance. Of her 29 touches, 17 were uncontested, and she had nine handball receives for the game. This marginal role change for Riddell has been at play all season, with Mia King and Tripodi heading into the contest to support Garner.

Instead of needing to fight it out at the bottom of the pack, Riddell has been afforded room to move around stoppage, more regularly on the receiving end of the footy while on the move pressing forward.

Finding that balance, and wider spread of contributors, has made North Melbourne’s fight to win and then maintain control more effective and significantly tougher for opposition teams to break down.

A rock-solid defence

Across AFLW history, only two teams have conceded an average of fewer points across the course of a season than North Melbourne did in 2024. And Brisbane certainly felt that squeeze.

The Lions’ score of just nine points is their equal second lowest score in their 93 games, and just the fourth time they’ve been restricted to one goal in that time.

They were afforded just one mark inside 50 for the game, their lowest since round four last year, notably also against North Melbourne, and registered only 20 inside 50s, their fewest since their 2022 (S7) Grand Final loss to Melbourne.

This was a result of the Roos’ famed team defensive structure, led by key trio Sarah Wright, Jasmine Ferguson and Libby Birch, while the likes of Emma Kearney, Erika O’Shea and Nicole Bresnehan offer bounce back out of the line.

With Ferguson playing as the deepest defender for the duration of the match, and Wright and Birch populating the next layer, their disciplined positioning regularly created an outnumber in their back half. If Brisbane did find any speed through the middle of the ground, it looked up to see the trio well set and ready to pounce.

Keeping such a long, layered defence limits the opposition’s ability to generate forward 50 entries and in turn find possession in the front half, resulting in Brisbane’s final goal efficiency of just five per cent.

It didn’t happen overnight. Rather, North Melbourne has been building toward this moment for seven seasons. First under coach Scott Gowans, and since 2021, Darren Crocker.

The silverware now in hand was the culmination of meticulous crafting. Of the list, of the style of play and of the mindset required to do what no other team has done: complete a season undefeated, and finish with the premiership cup in hand.