The Bench: Port Adelaide, Round 2 2026

Yeah, I think that was our best win ever.

I think that second half is the best football we've played, and I think that's our best win.

As we go into our 50th AFLW game this week, funnily enough, against the Pies, that was a truly incredible performance to get the four points there.

That second half was some of the best football we've played, both defensively and offensively.

And is it too much of a stretch to say that Laura Stone's goal late in the second quarter turned our season?

Well, that was it.

Watching it, there's pivotal moments throughout games, and you and I always talk about this, but seeing that goal go through in the second quarter when Port Adelaide seemed to have all the ascendancy, it just seemed to give us a bit of belief.

And going into halftime, I think that belief was certainly what we needed.

But watching that second half, my goodness gracious me, Liam, as you said, probably the best football that we've played.

And it just makes you sit there and go, if we can bring that week in and week out, what a force this team is going to be in the competition.

And it was just nice to be able to get the win on the road because having lost against Melbourne, who we know are going to be a...

A top four team coming up against Port Adelaide, who many pundits are believing are going to be in that sort of top four, top six range.

You thought we needed to be able to get the win.

You wanted to make sure you come out at least one and one rather than zero and two.

And to be able to do it in such emphatic style was certainly very pleasing for the Hawks on Facebook.

Yeah, and with such a short season, if you're 0-2 and still haven't played North Melbourne yet, it's going to be very tricky to make top four.

That's exactly right, because we know that there's only the 12 games in the competition in terms of the regular season before finals.

And if you're sitting there, yeah, and you're sitting there after one sixth with zero wins, it's certainly not great viewing, that's for sure.

So if you're new here to the bench, we're going to recap everything.

the Hawthorne victory over the weekend and we'll have five points.

Liam will have two points, I'll have two points and then we'll have one point that is from our fans, our loyal listeners, our fan voted point which gives us our five and we know that in terms of the AFL-W competition we have five on the bench but before we go through those points, Liam, it's important to go through the details from the weekend.

So it was Hawthorne running out convincing 32-point winners.

It was 10 goals, 5.65 to Port Adelaide, 5 goals, 3.33 in terms of our goal scorers on the evening.

On to McDonagh and Poppy Stockwell kicked three apiece.

We had two to Laura Stone, one to Lucy Wales, which is her first ever goal in terms of the AFL-W competition, and one to Greta Bodie.