Fremantle captain Kara Antonio feels Freo are well placed heading into the NAB AFL Women’s Finals series despite losing back-to-back games to finish the home and away season.
Freo suffered heartbreak at the hands of North Melbourne on Saturday at Arden Street, with the Kangaroos prevailing by a point.
It means Freo will have to win three straight games, potentially all on the road, to win the Grand Final.
Whether Fremantle play at home or away in week one will depend on the result between Collingwood and Adelaide on Sunday.
Adelaide (currently fourth on the ladder) will need to lose by approximately four goals for Fremantle (currently fifth on the ladder) to move up into fourth on percentage and earn a home final.
A narrow loss by the Crows will mean Fremantle travel to face Adelaide in the first week of finals.
If Adelaide win, Fremantle will travel to Melbourne to face the Demons in week one of the finals.
Despite losing to contenders North Melbourne and Melbourne in consecutive weeks by under a goal, Antonio said Fremantle have the belief they can compete against the AFLW’s best teams on the road.
“(That was) the first away game we’ve lost since the prelim final a couple of years back (against Carlton in 2019)," Antonio said.
“We love getting on the road as a group. It galvanises us, we’re a little bit closer together.
“We’ve really enjoyed being on the road this season so whatever gets thrown at us, we’ll grab with both hands and we’ll see how we go.
“We would love to be down at Freo Oval and get the crowd down there and do it in front of the fans, but no matter what happens, we’ll accept that and move on quickly.”
Antonio said Fremantle will need to be on top of their game to advance through the finals series.
“To be up there you have to beat the best and we haven’t been able to do that in the past couple of weeks,” Antonio said.
“Finals start next week and we have to bring our A-game otherwise we’ll be knocked out straight away.”
Antonio said the easiest way for Fremantle to turn their form around will be from improving their starts, going goalless in the opening term in seven of their past eight games.
Antonio said that a good start was a big focus for Fremantle against North Melbourne, and while they again went goalless for the term, they were pleased to only be a goal down at the break after the Kangaroos had a strong wind to their backs.
“To nullify them to one goal (with the wind) was pretty good,” Antonio said.
“We had a few opportunities early in the first that we didn’t quite capitalise on like we wanted to but I thought that definitely we picked up in the second quarter and we were able to hit the scoreboard a number of times.
“Even in that third quarter, I was really confident leading into the last that we could out run them and we just fell back to old ways and didn’t play the way we wanted to unfortunately.”
