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Under the Thursday night lights at Princes Park, the Hawks mounted a gutsy fightback against the dominant Demons but ultimately couldn’t get the job done and faded in the last.
Coach Daniel Webster summed up the game pretty succinctly:
“Terrible first quarter. Great second quarter. Great third quarter. Terrible last quarter.”
Hawks Eliza West and Casey Sherriff brought the heat against their old side.
The Demons came out firing in the first quarter making efficient use of their forward fifty entries to kick the first three goals. Our skills looked better than in 2025, but the gap between us and the Demons was still immediately evident. After some ineffective forward fifty entires, our first goal went to none other than 2025 leading goalkicker Áine McDonagh. She also set up new recruit Poppy Stockwell for her first goal at Hawthorn. Lucy Wales proved her dominance in the ruck early in her first game for Hawthorn since her major injury last year.
While some may have written off the Hawks at quarter time, we stepped it up a notch in the second quarter with three goals from Ashmore, McDonagh and Dupuy to the Demons’ one.
Greta Bodey laid a big tackle which led to McDonagh’s goal. We shrunk the margin down to seven points going into half time. We kept up the intensity for the third quarter, with the only goal going again to McDonagh to put us in front of the Demons by one point.
Unfortunately we lost our momentum in the last, with the Demons kicking three goals to our zero as we struggled to even enter our forward fifty.
Jac Dupuy is a much-needed addition to our forward line. McDonagh was our main and often only target down front last year and it’s great for her to have some support. The two of them make a great duo. Dupuy can also act as the second ruck, providing support to Wales. She’s an excellent fit in this Hawks team.
It’s great to see players thriving after coming back from injury. Our 2025 campaign was unfortunately rife with injury woes. While we’ve still been dealt some bad blows for 2026, with Emily Everist and Matilda Van Berkel suffering season-ending injuries before the season even started, it’s really good to see some of our best players fully fit and firing again. Lucy Wales is back after walking around and training with a burst appendix for five days. Captain Emily Bates made a miracle return to play in our semi-final against Carlton at the end of last year after injuring her SC joint but it’s amazing to have the inside midfielder back after another pre-season. Bridie Hipwell is a sight for sore eyes after breaking her leg in a horrifying clash in Round 6 against Collingwood last year.
Our skills still need to improve. Two things can be true: our skills already look better than last year, especially our kicking and marking abilities in forming chains stood out. That being said, there’s still a clear gap between us and a flag-winning club like Melbourne. We need to get cleaner with disposal if we want to challenge the AFLW greats.
We had more forward entries (36-32) than the Demons for less goals (6-9). On several occasions we bombed the ball in only for it to come straight back out again. Our forward entires need to be smarter than that.
After a career-best 2025 season as our Best and Fairest Winner and an All-Australian nod, our Irish superstar Áine McDonagh was back to her usual brilliance with three goals for the night.
Childhood Hawks supporter and granddaughter of Geoff Dupuy who played for Hawthorn in 1957, Jac Dupuy kicked her first goal in the brown and gold.
New recruit Poppy Stockwell kicked her first goal and only her second in the AFLW. Right at the end of the first quarter, Flockart got the ball out of the centre, McDonagh kicked it towards Stockwell who took the mark right in front of goal and then slotted the set shot through.
It’s so good to have Lucy Wales back at her best. She missed the last five games of 2025 due to injury and still finished 3rd by a narrow margin in the Best and Fairest.
Wales had 29 hit outs, 18 disposals (15 contested possessions) at 72% disposal efficiency, a team-high eight tackles and a game-high six clearances.
18-gamer Hayley McLaughlin set a new career-best for disposals with 18, surpassing her previous best of 15 in Round 2 against Carlton in 2025. She also had five marks and two score involvements.
We had four players debut on Thursday night. Barely a week after officially signed with Hawthorn as an injury replacement player, Annabelle Embelton made her AFLW debut. New recruits Jac Dupuy (49 games for Gold Coast), Poppy Stockwell (2 games for Fremantle) and Niamh Martin (16 games for North Melbourne) made their club debuts.
The Hawks didn’t sustain any injuries in the game against Melbourne, although Jasmine Fleming did debut her new goggles after suffering an eye injury during the pre-season. Mackenzie Eardley remains the biggest name on our injury list, 2-4 weeks away with an Achilles injury.
On needing to improve:
“It’s a good learning for us around what the standard is. We’re not happy with it because we don’t want to be on the losing end of those games.”
On Jac Dupuy’s Hawthorn debut:
“I thought she was amazing. All pre-season she’s looked like that, given us a real target up there and give it a different look. With her and Áine, it’s a good mix. I thought she was enormous tonight. She was obviously one of our better players and a great start in the brown and gold.”
On getting Lucy Wales back from injury:
“Handy. I thought she was really dominant. Big minutes as well, didn’t rotate much in the second half at all. Her and Jacq were right up there in our better players. Good around the ball. Penny’s an amazing player so we’re lucky to have her.”
HAWTHORN 2.2 5.3 6.5 6.5 (44)
MELBOURNE 5.1 6.4 6.5 9.6 (60)
GOALS
Hawthorn McDonagh 3, Stockwell, Ashmore, Dupuy
Melbourne Austin 4, Mahony 2, Hore, McNamara, Heath
For Round 2, we’re travelling interstate to South Australia to face expansion rivals Port Adelaide at Alberton Oval on Sunday 23 August at 5:20pm. For hometown Hawks fans, it’s going to be a big Sunday night in front of the TV with the women’s at 5:20pm then followed by the men’s at 7:20pm over in Perth.
The last time we met in Round 10 of the 2025 season, Port Adelaide thumped us by 35 points. This game will certainly be another big challenge.
Port Adelaide finished 10th on the ladder in 2025 with six wins and six losses after a preliminary final appearance in 2024.
Players to watch include 2025 AFLW Leading Goalkicker Indy Tahau (who kicked five against us last year), superstar ruck Matilda Scholz who will go head to head with Lucy Wales and captain Justine Mules-Robinson in the forward line.
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