CARLTON AFLW Senior Coach Daniel Harford provided his thoughts on his side’s 14-point win at the Cattery.
Responding from last week’s defeat with a hard-fought Round 2 victory, Harford believed the team’s ability to undo an early “overcorrection” was critical in the result.
And, unsurprisingly, the coach reserved a special mention for the standout performance of captain Kerryn Harrington.
On the game as a whole:
“It was an interesting game to watch. We felt that we probably overcorrected our style a little bit.
“Last week, we were a bit stagnant and stop-start and didn’t enable much flow against the Magpies. Tonight, part of our focus was to try and get more of that in the game.
“We overdid that a bit early, particularly in the first quarter. Geelong’s pressure made it really hard for us at times to go from end to end.
“There was a lot of pressure and trying to get away from that was one of the key areas, which we did pretty well in the end.”
On the disposal differential from Round 1 to Round 2:
“We had 159 disposals last week and we had 257 today, which has got to be some sort of record from week to week.
“We probably overcorrected that tonight and somewhere in the middle of that is probably the ideal look of what we want to achieve from a consistent perspective.
“But I’m very pleased for the girls.
“We didn’t play well last week and we didn’t get the result. We played much better tonight, and we did.”
On the performance of Kerryn Harrington:
“I was really pleased for ‘Kez’, our skipper.
“She carries a big burden as the leader of the group and for her to perform like she did tonight was really great reward for her effort through the whole summer.
“Her teammates got around her a bit too, she was up and about from the start of the game.
“She had a real influence across the back half for us and launching into our forward half. She was fantastic.”
On the other key contributors:
“Gab Pound down there did a great job down there, Brea Moody in the ruck did a hell of a job and then our kids in the middle.
“Maddy Guerin came in and had a really good game, Abbie McKay led our clearances, Maddy Prespakis was terrific all over the ground.
“Elise O’Dea too, and Lucy McEvoy had a really good game as well.
“Our midfield brigade got the chocolates I think, and that helped us with the performance tonight.”
