AFL WOMEN’S Rankings: Finals 2021

The Brisbane Lions shot past everyone to reach the top. 

The Lions break through

In what shaped as a close AFLW finals series, most of the results went (sometimes barely) as the rankings predicted. That was until the Grand Final at Adelaide Oval, where the travelling Brisbane Lions finally won a Grand Final at their third attempt, beating the two-time premiership team and home team the Adelaide Crows. Many observers might have been at least mildly surprised given the Crows’ success and home ground advantage, but the top sides were very close this season, and each showed they were highly capable of beating the others throughout the year.  

Brisbane had less of the ball forward, but they had more of the ball

If you asked some people (and commentators) what the key to Brisbane’s Grand Final win was, they would likely say it was how well the Lions’ defence stood up against the Crows’ forward entries. Adelaide had 44 inside 50s – the sixth most ever recorded in an AFLW match – to just 24 for Brisbane. That differential is a little inflated by nearly every player camping in Adelaide’s forward half in the final quarter, but there is still little doubt Brisbane’s intercept marking in defence was important.

However, another part of this is that Brisbane had a lot more of the ball in uncontested situations compared with the Crows. The Lions recorded 130 uncontested possessions to Adelaide’s 92, and had 46 marks to the Crows’ 31. Seven of the top ten players for disposals in the Grand Final were Lions. The Lions’ disposal efficiency was pretty good at 61 per cent, compared with 54 per cent for the Crows.

Brisbane controlled the possession, even if they did not control the territory.

The premiership side and the most improved one

In the 2020 AFLW season the Lions were basically a mid-level side. They won three matches out of six with one draw, had a percentage of 107.0, had a ranking of -2.0, and were knocked out in the first week of the finals.

This all changed very quickly in 2021. The Lions jumped out of the gate, winning their first three matches – albeit against lowly-ranked sides – by a combined total of 137 points. Their season after that was then fairly emblematic of the AFLW season as a whole. First they played mostly higher-ranked sides, as the AFLW took advantage of the otherwise disadvantageous situation of determining the fixture a week ahead to schedule more competitive match-ups. Second they won three out of their five matches against those higher-ranked sides, all determined by margins of 15 points or less, showing how closely matched those top sides were. If Collingwood had kicked one more goal against the Lions in the preliminary final, Brisbane would have not been at Adelaide Oval at all.

That does not matter now though, and few AFLW fans would deny the worth of the Lions’ achievement of winning away against the competition’s powerhouse to date. After their previous heartbreak in Grand Finals, the Lions’ win was probably the most popular AFLW premiership of all.