Melbourne Demons players and staff can add AFLW Premiers to their resumes after defeating Brisbane on the Lions’ home turf in an arm-wrestle on Sunday afternoon.
Melbourne president Kate Roffey insisted the Demons’ “will to win” was prolific in the side’s thrilling four-point victory at Brighton Homes Arena in Springfield.
Roffey, the first female president of the club, has had a front-row seat to Melbourne’s AFLW adventure, including a Grand Final loss to Adelaide in Season 6 this April.
The win over the Lions is seen as some sort of redemption for Mick Stinear’s Dees.
“I think I slept seven years’ worth of relief last night,” Roffey joked on SEN Breakfast.
“I’ve been working closely with them for seven years and they are drilled as a group.
“You know you are in a place to win premiership when you’ve got the maturity to guts-out wins and that’s what they did yesterday.”
After a dominant first half from the Lions, Daisy Pearce’s Demons put on a spirited performance in the second half to claim their first AFLW premiership in front of more than 7,000 fans.
In a post-match interview with Channel 7, Pearce remarked Brisbane had “invited the wrong team to their housewarming”.
However, all jokes aside, Roffey explained the inherent problems with this year’s Grand Final venue, claiming “the ball didn’t bounce off the deck”.
Roffey put the low-scoring Grand Final result down the state of the ground, as the Demons prevailed by kicking 2.7.(19) to 2.3.(15).
“We went out on Saturday and the girls did a couple of bounces and the coaches just said ‘don’t bounce’,” Roffey added.
“That meant that the run and carry aspect of it probably wasn’t on show as it would’ve been, so it changes things a bit.”
Looking forward, Roffey asserted the AFL must prioritise earlier planning to secure suitable venues for AFLW finals, particularly to showcase the Grand Final. “If it is to be a home final, the AFL needs to book a suitable venue now in every state for next year,” she said further.
“And if you’re not going to do that, then you need to do the MCG-style thing and say ‘right well here is one venue where it will be’.
“If you play in better venues, you get bigger scores and the women can execute their skills better because they are not wind affected or on uneven grounds and things, so this is a really bigger venue conversation that we need to have.
“The venues I think is probably, across the board, the biggest issue we’ve got to address for our women at the moment.”
The Demons became just the fourth club to win the AFLW premiership, following Adelaide, the Western Bulldogs and the Lions.