BY THREE-QUARTER time of Saturday's must-win semi-final against Hawthorn, star Port Adelaide midfielder Abbey Dowrick had touched the ball just six times.
The Power were down by 22 points and struggling to generate their dangerous attacking style, built on contested footy, and something needed to change. At the huddle there was a suggestion that Dowrick needed to be used elsewhere, and a shift forward was the eventual result.
Dowrick went on to play a stunning final quarter, kicking two important goals from seven disposals, and proving instrumental in Port Adelaide's come-from-behind win.
"Abbey's been probably our best mid all year, certainly in metres gained, and wasn't feeling at her best all night, and to go to her at three-quarter time and had some great support in the coaching group and Shane Grimm, our head of footy, to just say 'Hey, what else can we do with 'Abs'?'" Port Adelaide coach Lauren Arnell said in the aftermath of the win.
"It wasn't just my idea, it was certainly from the whole group to go 'Let's swing her forward' … I think the whole team just went to work, and really pleased for Abbey, too. I think it's more confidence for Abs to know that even when you feel like there's not much left in the tank, there always is."
For Dowrick, it simply came down to trust. In Arnell, the wider coaching staff, and the system in which the Power has been playing.
"I trust 'Loz' all the way. She's been in there with me from the start of my AFLW career, and just backed in the process that she has in place," Dowrick told AFL.com.au.
"I guess that's why I'm so immensely proud of her and the team, it's just that it shows now on the field what kind of footy we're trying to play.
"So, I do whatever the coaches want … I wasn't able to get my hands on the footy much in the mid, and then got forward and I felt like I had a bit more freedom, I guess. Just got to run around a bit more and put a bit of score on the board, which is cool."
There is a world, however, where Dowrick isn't in this position, having just won her way through to a preliminary final, making history at Port Adelaide.
A highly talented junior, she took a step away from the game as a teenager after falling out of love with it.
The elite talent pathways and weight of expectation had taken their toll. But a move away from her home in Western Australia to South Australia in 2022 to reunite with sister Mackenzie, who at the time was playing for Adelaide, and a handful of SANFLW games with Woodville-West Torrens sparked the joy of the game for her once more.
"My sister got me over to play SANFLW and it all just kind of took off from there," Dowrick said.
"I think the best thing for me was probably getting out of WA and just starting a fresh life and I haven't looked back since. I've loved every moment of being in Adelaide.
"The girls and the staff just make it that much better and more enjoyable, because they're just like family. Being away from home, it's pretty hard, but they make it that much easier."
The life she has established in South Australia includes a relationship – on and off the field – with the side's star ruck Matilda Scholz. Key to their successes in footy and life has been the ability to separate the two.
"Me and Matilda had a bit of a relationship on the field, connection-wise, before we started dating. But we just do really well, I think, at separating our outside life and our footy life. Footy's what we absolutely love, so we never let our relationship come in between that," Dowrick said.
"Footy's footy, and our outside life's our outside life."
Keeping things separate, however, doesn't stop Dowrick from admiring Scholz's impressive feats on the field.
"She's incredible," Dowrick said.
"I mean, she's firing. Maybe Mark of the Year, we'll wait and see, but obviously I just sit there and smile. Proud of her, just like most of the girls."
With attention now shifted to the biggest game in Port Adelaide's short AFLW history, Saturday's preliminary final against minor premier North Melbourne, there is an air of confidence about Dowrick and her teammates.
It's not an unearned confidence, or a brashness. Instead, it's a solid trust in the foundations the club has set in its three seasons in the competition.
"We'll give it out all, we'll give it a good shot. We're a very different team since I think it was round four when we versed them," Dowrick said.
"As we have every week, we'll just do our homework on them again, and then just crack into what we want to show out on the field. They're a great team, but we'll just stick to what we do and go from there.
"It's almost cool, being the underdog, because people don't expect that. And then when you come out, people are like 'Oh hold on, these Power girls are not here to mess around'."
