The Sydney Swans AFLW team have suffered a 31-point loss at the hands of Collingwood on Sunday afternoon at Victoria Park in Melbourne.
The Swans started well and were quick out of the blocks with two early goals through Aliesha Newman and Rebecca Priviteli, however were unable to withstand a mountain of pressure from Collingwood who stepped up their game in the second half.
It was an onslaught in the second half with the Pies dominating, kicking 3.4 to the Swans one behind to take the points in the Round 2 match.
Post-match Sydney Swans Head Coach Scott Gowans said it was a disappointing effort but credited the high level of football produced by their opponents.
"I'm a little flat just with the result, but again you have to take the perspective, it was great to see plenty of red and white and hear the crowd chanting for the team. But I get we are on journey, but we also want to perform, the coach in me says it was a pretty disappointing effort," Gowans said.
The game went in a similar fashion to the pre-season practice match against the Pies just three weeks ago, where the Swans played a solid first half of football but faded in the second half of the game.
"We feel that we can sustain for a little while, but it's the 6/7 preseasons in teams vs our 12 weeks," Gowans said.
"You can get running fit but you can't get them match fit for that type of intensity (that the side faced today), we were hanging on for dear life. To Collingwood's credit they are a good side and have some good tricks up their sleeve and they connected really well. We felt the pressure as a team from them and had no answer for them.
"Similar to last week, I think we used the corridor too much and played on a little bit too much, but that said you can't have it all your way. I'd rather do that than not do that and be very defensive, so we try take the game on, eventually what will happen is the connection and the match fitness and that will come to fruition but at the moment they do bits and pieces and we just need to find the balance."
While dominated by a far more experienced Magpies outfit, a positive to take away from the Swans performance was the side's elite tackle pressure from start to finish.
"That is where it all starts for us (our tackling pressure), we lost the tackle count by three but we had 69 tackles which is great for the day," Gowans said.
With 13 AFLW debutants in the past two weeks, Gowans said his young side will take plenty of learnings from the match.
"You play a side like that who can change the way they play mid match, I feel you cant get better learnings from that.
"I said to the girls after the game, be disappointed in the result but take the learnings from it, they will do self reflection now and it's all about learning for us. Hopefully at some stage it all connects."
The Swans will now turn their attention to a big Round 3 match, the first Sydney Derby and the celebration of AFLW Indigenous Round and the first ever AFLW match at the SCG next Saturday.
"I think these are the games you look forward to, we hope to get a bit crowd there," Gowans said.
"Being able to get on the SCG with a big crowd there on our side, hopefully we can keep momentum for longer and play some good footy. Stick with us we are getting there."
COLLINGWOOD 1.2 3.5 4.7 6.9 (45)SYDNEY 2.0 2.1 2.1 2.2 (14)
GOALSCollingwood: Membrey 2, Barber 2, James, MolloySydney: Newman, Privitelli
BESTCollingwood: Lambert, Schleicher, Molloy, Cann, AllenSydney: Szigeti, Whelan, Eastman, Tarrant, Privitelli
INJURIESCollingwood: Lambert (ankle)Sydney: Nil
