Geelong couldn’t maintain the momentum of its first win of the AFLW season, falling to Gold Coast in a “disappointing” performance on Friday night.
The Cats made their second interstate trip of the season to take on the Suns at Metricon Stadium and got off to a strong start, kicking the first two goals of the game through Kate Darby and Zali Friswell.
But the Suns dominated most of the contest after the first break and ran away with a 7.7 (49) to 6.2 (38) win.
Cats coach Dan Lowther said the result was disappointing, with the Cats proving no match for the Suns in the middle of the ground.
“Disappointing is a nice word to describe it,” he said.
“I thought we started the game very well and had some ascendancy but [in] that middle part of the game we threw it away, which is really disappointing.
“In the third quarter our contested possession numbers were really low. We couldn’t get our second phase to compete where we needed to compete.
“They ran really well in the third quarter and that was probably the difference in the end.
“The girls tried really hard in the last quarter to regain some ascendancy but that third quarter really cost us.”
The Cats kicked just the one goal across the second and third quarters, to the Suns’ five, with the clearances in the middle going Gold Coast’s way.
The Suns finished the game with 37 clearances to Geelong’s 19, as well as a 126-108 contested possession advantage, giving their forwards more chances to kick a winning score.
Cats captain Meg McDonald said there were positives the team would take from the game.
“The good thing about this season is we know what works for us and when we’re getting scored on, it is largely our own fault,” she said.
“A couple of critical errors at times for us meant that they kicked a number of goals that were off the back of our mistakes [and] that was the difference in the end.
“The game is up to us to decide a lot of the time.”
McDonald said she was pleased with the team’s improvement in the forward half.
“We pride ourselves on being good in the contest, but we want to take the ball forward more often,” she said.
“When we did, we scored, but we were down significantly on inside 50s … and that cost us in the long run.”
She pointed to the Cats’ last quarter, where they kicked three goals to one to bring the margin back within two goals.
Geelong will now face the Western Bulldogs at Whitten Oval on Friday night.
