AFLW Head Coach Scott Gowans spoke to media ahead of the team's first trip on the road to play Collingwood on Sunday at Victoria Park. Here's the key quotes from his press conference.
On Round 1 vs St Kilda
Any coach will tell you they want to try and win. On reflection you can look back at the event and overall it was such a win for the club and overall to have 8000 plus people at North Sydney Oval, the largest AFLW crowd in NSW in AFLW history was fantastic. On reflection I am comfortable with what we put out there, there's lots and lots of improvement however and like every coach you want to win.
We went up the corridor with our ball movement from deep 50 and gave it back to the Saints too much, that's not us and not how we want to play. North Sydney Oval dictated that both sides probably played into the hands of the oval a little, the Saints from a stoppage perspective and us from a ball movement perspective.
On Round 2 v Collingwood
Collingwood are an amazing outfit and we will need to be smarter with decision making. It's a big task for us but we need to get away from it being our first game on the road and focus on football strategy and to stick to the game plan and how we want to move the ball.
We spent the last two weeks since our practice game against Collingwood focussing on different ways to play the game so we will be able to change the way we play if Collingwood do gain momentum and then have plan B and plan C too. We are hoping to be able to implement that if we need to.
On team changes for Round 2
We have match committee tomorrow night and there certainly are players sticking their hands up for some game time. We have to replace Montana Ham so are on the lookout for a midfielder and there are a number of players who we think can do it. We will have a look at Collingwood and see their strengths and weakness from last week from their Round 1 game against Carlton so will pick the side from there. There's a chance at least one player will make their debut.
On Montana Ham and her injury
She's going really well. She's in a good spirits. I spoke to her this morning and she was off to school. She's 3-4 weeks away, it depends on how her knee recovers. It was a knee strain in the end and something that could have been bad for Montana has turned out not too bad.
