Kara “Juddy” Antonio asked for one last fairytale and it came to fruition today. How did you see the game as a whole?
When Hawthorn were three goals in front they had nine minutes to go with the breeze and it was looking very bleak, but the team lifted and we got it forward. But that goal from Kara into the breeze was absolutely huge for the momentum of the game and to keep us in it. She definitely played her part in the game today that’s for sure.
 
What about her legacy both at Fremantle and for women’s football as a whole?
We’ve talked about that a fair bit this week and the players that are around are appreciative, the next generation probably won’t know how much she’s done for women’s football and for Freo in particular. She set the standard right from day one. I wasn’t there the first couple of years but all you hear is how she set the standard. From the moment I came in she was the leader and without her the club could have struggled with its women’s team for quite a few years. But to her credit she really stuck strong and brought a lot of people along for the ride. We’re already seeing the benefit of that now with the likes of Hayley Miller who has learnt how to be a leader off Kara and they’re passing it on to the next group like Dana East and those types.

Where does she sit among the players you’ve coached in your time at Fremantle?
To be honest she was probably injured from the moment I started and not many players would have played that many games with the injuries she’s carried. She’s always managed to just find a way to get through so as a players she’s been fantastic, but her legacy is way beyond that. It really is as a leader and bringing others along for the ride and she’s made a lot of other people better, including me as a coach, so I think that’s what I appreciate most.

It looked like at stages teammates were trying to seek her out and send her off fittingly – was that an instruction from you?
No, it was actually the opposite to be honest because we knew that would happen and that’s not the way Kara plays, she’s always been a high scoring player and there was a period where we doing that a bit too much. Particularly when we were kicking to a one on one when she was on Cunningham who is about a foot and a half taller than her. So once we got away from that and started playing normally, that’s when Kara is at her best, and to finish with two goals was a fitting reward for her.
 
Was it the three quarter time address that sparked the final quarter or the emotion?
The players had turned it around in the third quarter when we were down by 17 points kicking into the breeze it was looking pretty ominous at that stage, but the players themselves did that and got us back to within two goals, and at three quarter time the address was kind of the opposite. It was just to be calm and controlled because emotions were already high, everyone wanted to do it for Kara and we knew we had the breeze, but just to go steady and not go gangbusters at the game. It was actually Ebony Antonio that started that last quarter with two sublime possessions where the temptation could have been, with the adrenaline, to go long but she found two nice targets to finish with that first goal to put Hawthorn on the back foot straight away.
 
Any other day, Aine Tigh is probably the headline act with four goals, has she been building towards a game like this?
As a forward it’s always going to be dependent on your opposition and your teammates and last week when we reviewed it with her, she easily could have kicked five goals . She was really close, she was in good position, teammates missed her with targets, she actually kicked two off last week, so she’s been building towards that for quite a while now. This is still actually her first year of playing football which is amazing because she’s been here a while, but she’s a real threat to the opposition and a big part of our team.

Mim Strom’s performance?
I think she’s had more possessions than any other ruck in the competition so she gets underrated because she’s not as big and doesn’t win as many hit outs but her around the ground work and her desire to compete in those hit outs to make sure the opposition don’t get too many clean ones. To the outside I don’t think she gets enough credit, but within our four walls she definitely does and is very popular with her teammates. I know Kiara Bowers absolutely loves her and the work that she does and it’s not a bad person to have as your number one cheerleader.
 
What about Hayley Miller, that hit seemed to still really bother her?
She wouldn’t have played in any normal game. It was just for Kara. She did a really good job for us too I thought, but then the pain kicked in and got worse and worse. There were only about four different movements that hurt it – when she put her arms up, when she ran flat out and when she kicked, so there’s not much else to do in footy but she fought through it really well to the point where she couldn’t give it any more but she still wanted to finish out on the ground with Kara at the end. She did a good job for the team.
 
After the season you’ve had, is it a bit of a relief that it’s over now?
Probably. We’re a side that likes to play finals so once we got to the point where we were out of finals contention it was about building and improving and to the girl’s credit they didn’t drop away at any stage and their training has always been first class and the desire to improve. And we think we’ve done that in the back half of the year. I still think that our two best two games were against Melbourne and Adelaide, rather than the two wins at the end. It gives the group something to work towards next year and I think as a group they can bounce back and be in contention again.

What will it take to bounce back?
Availability will be a big one and availability during the pre season. The girls really need a good break now, players like Dana East and Mikayla Tuhakaraina and Amy Franklin have basically played three seasons in a row without a break, so they can absolutely rest their bodies and come back again. We need to improve our rate of uncontested ball and uncontested possession so we can create better inside 50 entries which we’ve been doing the last few weeks. There’s different ways you can go about that. Melbourne and Brisbane are completely different the way they do it, but they do it really well so we need to work out ways to improve that part of our game.
 
And do you expect any other list changes?
We haven’t looked at that. With the draft age going up, and we don’t even know the list rules, how many players we are allowed and how many we are allowed to keep. So it won’t be the turnover we’ve had in past seasons I wouldn’t have thought.