In Round 3’s stats deep dive, Brisbane welcomes its most frequent guests, Collingwood, for an infrequent Friday night game, and it hasn’t just been Ally Anderson making history for the Lions.

Brisbane leads its head-to-head record against Collingwood 6 wins to 4, but has five wins in the last six matches. Beginning with a 3-point win at Whitten Oval in the run to the 2021 premiership, the Lions won five on the trot against the ‘Pies. That streak included the season 6 Qualifying Final when eight different Lions found the goals, including Ruby Svarc for the first time and Orla O’Dwyer from 55 metres, and Brisbane won by 50.

The only blemish in this decade was at last October at Brighton Homes Arena. With Collingwood having triumphed over Brisbane in the men’s Grand Final seven days earlier, and Jade Ellenger and Poppy Boltz stood down for reasons that had not yet been explained, the Lions kicked just 3.10 from 19 shots at goal and went down by 5.

Gotta get down on Friday

Friday night footy has been a regular part of the AFLW since its inception, so it’s surprising that Brisbane has played on Fri-yay only five times. Given that they’ve won four of them, Bre and Starce might want to lobby the AFL for a few more.

Following a first-up loss to Melbourne, Brisbane has cruised through its other four Friday night fixtures winning by an average of 32 points. In 2018, the Lions put ten goals past GWS to qualify for the Grand Final. After that, fast forward to season 7 in 2022 when Brighton Homes Arena was being constructed and the Lions were couch surfing at People First Stadium. Three times they turned on the Friday night lights, twice for wins over then reigning premiers Adelaide, and once over Collingwood when they kept the ‘Pies goalless until the last 75 seconds.

The other positive sign for Brisbane is that they’ve proven to be more accurate in front of goal on a Friday. In all five matches, the Lions’ goal tally has been greater or equal to their behind tally, while their opponents have always had more behinds than goals.

Perhaps the solution to the Lions’ kicking woes against Collingwood last year was nothing more complicated than changing the day.

No fixed abode

The eleventh match between Brisbane and Collingwood will be the tenth time that Brisbane has been the home team. No other team in the AFLW has hosted any other team ten times. Carlton has come to Brisbane once in nine seasons, the Western Australian teams have come to visit three times between them, but Collingwood is on first name basis with the local airport staff.

Even stranger is that those ten home matches for Brisbane have been played at eight grounds in six different cities. Admittedly, one of those is Melbourne when Covid restrictions in 2021 required Brisbane to move its home game to the Bulldogs’ Mission Whitten Oval. But the Lions have also hosted Collingwood on the Gold Coast (People First Stadium), the Sunshine Coast (Domino’s Oval in Maroochydore), Moreton Bay (South Pine Sports Complex and Moreton Bay Central Sports Complex), Brisbane (Hickey Park and the Gabba), and in Ipswich at Brighton Homes Arena.

Ipswich is the only city in which Brisbane has played Collingwood but not won. No better day of the week to fix that than a Friday.

Not just about the 43

Quite rightly, the statistical attention over the past week has been on Ally Anderson’s record-breaking 43 disposals against Melbourne. However, the footy stat that the Lions’ women have made fashionable is the tackle count, and three of their finest hit significant career tackle numbers last week.

Tahlia Hickie’s two hits for the day took her to 150 career tackles. Nat Grider brought six Demons to ground to reach 200 career tackles. And Courtney Hodder’s four tackles may have been down on her career average, but they were enough to make her the 18th AFLW player and fourth Lion to reach 300 tackles.

The Lions’ all-time tackling leader is Cathy Svarc with 460, third overall. Jade Ellenger will begin the match against Collingwood on 145 tackles; at her usual rate, reaching 150 might take two matches.

126 of Hodder’s 300 tackles have been inside the forward 50 arc. That is an AFLW record, 16 ahead of Melbourne’s Kate Hore.

Say it louder for the people at the back

The Rebound 50 is one of the less celebrated player stats but it’s highly valued by defenders and should provide three more milestones this week.

Lions fans are used to the sight of Shannon Campbell cutting off the opposition’s inside-50 entries and sending them back with interest. To be exact, Campbell has done that 199 times, behind only North Melbourne’s Emma Kearney and Collingwood’s Stacey Livingstone. Sophie Conway and Ally Anderson have rebounded from the arc 99 times each, which is good going for two players also required to push forward.

One reason for celebrating defensive achievements is that backs choose significantly better goal songs than forwards but we rarely get to hear them. Dakota Davidson might force the fans to endure We Like to Party twenty times this season, but when Shannon Campbell reaches 200 career rebound-50s, why not blast Everything is Awesome across Brighton Homes Arena? Sadly, we missed Kate Lutkins’ 150th rebound-50 two weeks ago, so we’ll never know what effect 3,000 people singing “Aserejé, ja, dejé…” would have had on North Melbourne.

Brisbane made light work of Collingwood on Friday night, returning to the flair and joy that characterised its 2023 premiership with a 52-point win at Brighton Homes Arena.

After leading by five points at quarter-time, the Lions took full advantage of the strong breeze in the second term, kicking four unanswered goals to lay the foundation for the 10.12 (72) to 3.2 (20) victory.

It pushed their record to two wins and one loss ahead of hosting the Western Bulldogs next Wednesday as the mid-season fixture crunch begins.

Sophie Conway was the catalyst for victory, kicking two of her three goals before the half, the second coming courtesy of a brilliant finish from 45m.

The dashing winger finished with 16 disposals, seven of which resulted in scores.

Conway had plenty of help, with midfielder Belle Dawes (22, a goal and six clearances) her usual high-energy self and vying for best on ground honours, while Taylor Smith continued her rapid improvement with three goals.

Ally Anderson followed up last week's record-breaking 43-disposal performance with another 21, Nat Grider and Bre Koenen were fantastic in defence and Jade Ellenger (19) ran strongly on the wing.

Following the heavy first-up loss to North Melbourne, the Lions have steadily improved the past fortnight, with a strong defensive effort to beat Melbourne followed by plenty of the run and linking up game that took them to last year's premiership evident against the Pies.

Collingwood started swiftly, with the game's first three scoring shots including a goal from Alana Porter.

It was one-way traffic after that though, as Brisbane held the visitors scoreless for the second and third quarters, piling on 18 consecutive scoring shots that could have resulted in an even greater margin had they kicked straight.

Bri Davey (24 and a goal) fought hard against a Cathy Svarc tag, while Brit Bonnici (16 and a goal) was tireless.

Taylor Smith stepping up
With an unusually quiet game from spearhead Dakota Davidson, it was timely that her tall forward sidekick Taylor Smith had a big night out. Smith, who played her 50th career game a week ago, kicked three goals from nine disposals and was a handful for Stacey Livingstone. Smith's first goal came after the Magpie full-back infringed in a marking contest, her second came from a ball spilling over the back of a contest and third after receiving a handball from Charlie Mullins and snapping from close range. The athletic Lion is becoming an increasingly dangerous proposition in the air and on the ground. 

Curious case of Jordan Ivey
Collingwood has been smashed by injuries early this season and it appears to have reached a tipping point. With only a handful of fit players available outside the 21 required to field a team, the Magpies raised eyebrows when selecting Jordan Ivey to face the Lions. A top-up player brought in from the VFLW, Ivey was chosen in front of a couple of AFLW listed players. Tough times for the Pies. 

Up next
With the mid-season fixture crunch about to hit, it's a short turnaround for both clubs. Collingwood travels back home to face the impressive 2-1 West Coast next Tuesday night (7.15pm AEST) at Ikon Park. Brisbane has five days break and will host the Western Bulldogs at Brighton Homes Arena on Wednesday at 7.15pm AEST.

BRISBANE     2.1       6.6       7.11     10.12 (72)
COLLINGWOOD        1.2       1.2       1.2       3.2 (20)

GOALS
Brisbane: Smith 3, Conway 3, R.Svarc, C.Svarc, O'Dwyer, Dawes
Collingwood: Porter, Bonnici, Davey

BEST 
Brisbane: Dawes, Conway, Grider, Koenen, Anderson
Collingwood: Davey, Bonnici, Schleicher, Campbell

INJURIES
Brisbane: Nil
Collingwood: Nil

LATE CHANGES
Brisbane: Nil
Collingwood: Eleri Morris (illness) replaced in selected side by Sarah Sansonetti

Reports: Nil

Crowd: 2168 at Brighton Homes Arena