SOUTH Australia started the NAB AFL Women's Under-18 Championships in style, defeating the Northern Territory in two matches in Darwin last weekend.
The visitors won the first match on Friday night by 29 points, and they put the foot down in the second on Sunday morning, winning comprehensively by 68 points.
NEXT GEN Full NAB AFLW U18 Champs fixture and results
Coach Bill Economou was delighted with the improvement shown by his team in the second game.
"We started off a bit slowly and weren't too happy with the first three quarters on Friday night," Economou told AFL.com.au.
"I was really pleased after the response shown after the first game's review, where we'd focused on a few areas that needed some work.
"Our work around the contested ball and the positioning of players to receive the ground ball wasn’t as efficient as we'd like. We just needed to play a bit smarter and share the ball around."
SA v NT Full match details and statistics
Economou was particularly happy with the performance in the second match, given the unusual circumstances for his team.
"It was pretty tough for both teams to come back on Sunday morning after a Friday night game. We were up and about at 5:30am. It takes a while to get prepared for a match like that.
"It was certainly quite humid in the morning, and our girls weren't as acclimatised as the Northern Territory team, so we were really proud with the way we finished."
The best players from both teams will be picked for a Central Allies team that will compete in the second phase of the championships, on the Gold Coast in July.
The team will be picked by AFLW talent staff, an independent coach will be appointed and support staff from both sides will be used.
South Australian players to impress included Montana McKinnon (who won the team's MVP award), NAB AFLW Academy player Nikki Gore, Jaimi Tabb and Rachelle Martin.
Tabitha May (team MVP), Maddy Gault and Danielle Ponter were the Northern Territory's best.
The leading goalkickers for each side over the weekend were South Australian Katelyn Rosenzweig (six) and Northern Territorians Arthurina Moreen, Bella Clarke and Tayla Hart-Aluni (two each).
