Kangaroos stare down brave Lions to prove even the loftiest AFLW dreams can come true
A foregone conclusion, it was said.North Melbourne had already done the impossible.They’d won last year’s flag after an undefeated season, and then followed it up with an astonishing second season of the same in 2025.On paper, a gaping chasm seemed to separate them from the rest of the competition.They were untouchable, unbeatable, and going back-to-back was the only possible outcome.
A foregone conclusion, it was said, yet nothing foregone looks like this: close calls and genuine scares, performances as flawed as they are successful,Each game, every moment, another question demanding they scrape and claw their way to an answer,This grand final was no different,For the third time in as many years, their opponent was the juggernaut that is the Brisbane Lions – a team blooded by a monstrous seven grand final appearances in the 10 season span of this competition,The Brisbane strategy was sound, too.
Melbourne had provided something of a blueprint in last week’s near win, and Brisbane followed it to the letter, getting an early jump on the Kangaroos and not allowing them to settle into their game.They played the ball hard, laying the body on the line with abandon.Their bumps were bruising, their tackles punitive, and there was a ferocious desperation to their every move.The dreams Brisbane harboured were of glory.They came to slay the dragon, and they were ready for a fight.
Nothing about the result felt predetermined.In fact, it was all North Melbourne could do to weather the onslaught, and if Brisbane had been able to convert on more forward entries in the early going, perhaps the scoreboard would have reflected something far different.But playing such an aggressive, high-pressure game comes at a cost.Anything short of flawless execution grants your opponent an opening, and this North outfit needs a door only slightly ajar.For every Brisbane stumble, they were there to capitalise, opportunistic and accurate and devastating.
And when Shannon Campbell gave away an undisciplined 100m penalty in the second term, walking North inside 50 to gift them a goal, it seemed to settle like a rock in the pits of Brisbane’s stomachs.Because the truth about champion teams, the inevitability that all contenders must grasp, is that they never run short of players to step up.Have a plan to cover one, a way to neutralise another, but someone else will appear and seize the game by the reins.It is not a question of if, but rather who and when.And make no mistake, North Melbourne are a champion team.
They ought to be household names at this point.Kearney.Randall.Riddell.Garner.
It’s hard to believe that they all belong to the same side at the same moment in time, and hearing the names in succession when they connect on a play is eye-watering stuff,Ash Riddell alone has broken disposal records so many times now it barely registers for the stunning achievement it is,And then, there’s the newcomers,Eilish Sheerin in her first grand final, rising to the occasion like a seasoned veteran in her best-on-ground turn,Eliza Shannon, last year’s unlucky exclusion, somehow standing out in a defensive structure that is famously uniform and impermeable.
In the end, North ran away with it at a sold-out Ikon Park, beating the Lions 9.2 (56) to 2.4 (16) to complete a perfect season and become the first AFLW team to win back-to-back premierships.Sign up to Australia SportGet a daily roundup of the latest sports news, features and comment from our Australian sports deskafter newsletter promotionTheir killer instinct does not have an off switch, and they struck blow after devastating blow, long after the game had already been won.The scoreline seems almost a mockery of the fierce early struggle that played out, undermining both Brisbane’s valiant attempt and North’s steely eyed demeanour in equal measure.
It’s the end of the trilogy, a best of three settled at long last, and yet it’s difficult to imagine either of these teams relenting next year.If there is another repeat, perhaps the game will be staged at a venue far more befitting of such a ferocious clash of titans.It would be a shame to look back at this period of unflinching dominance and wonder why the league could not echo North Melbourne’s ambition with their own logistic decisions; why they could not dare to stand on the shoulders of giants, take a swing at a larger ground, and simply go about the business of filling it.For now, that ambition belongs only to this historic, jubilant North Melbourne side, and to all who dare oppose them.“Not done yet,” their banner proudly proclaimed, and in the wake of this victory, it rings out as promise and threat both.
They’re not yet done showing us what’s possible, but they also remind us that when all is said and done, this team might well be the best to ever do it.There is no shame in falling short when trying to scale such lofty, staggering heights.What matters, then, is the attempt.It matters that more teams aspire to it, just as North did.The most successful program in AFLW history started out with a dream, followed by years of investment, recruitment, and excruciating work.
To slay the dragon, you need only the audacity to start,
Woman jailed for harassing Rachel Reeves’s MP sister
A woman who tried to summon her MP, the solicitor general Ellie Reeves, to court has been jailed for harassment in London.Tracey Smith sent Reeves 22 emails and 10 voicemails calling her “transphobic” and accusing her older sister – the chancellor, Rachel Reeves – of physically assaulting her at a buffet bar.Smith, who is a trans woman, used phrases including “a person is dangerous when they have nothing to lose” and “bullets will be flying around”.The 58-year-old was jailed for 26 weeks and ordered to pay costs of £650 at Westminster magistrates court on Friday.District judge Michael Snow also ordered a restraining order without time limit to be imposed
Labour MPs to demand more concessions on workers’ rights after government climbdown
Labour MPs are preparing to demand further concessions on workers’ rights as the price of accepting ministers’ decision to ditch plans for day-one protection against unfair dismissal.MPs who are unhappy about the move will push for stronger protections in other areas, such as bogus self-employment arrangements, as part of Labour’s “make work pay” agenda.But the government looks set to get its amended employment rights package through the Commons despite backbench anger at the eleventh-hour compromise, which critics say breaches a Labour manifesto commitment.Ministers announced on Thursday that they were axing a plan to give workers the right to make an unfair dismissal claim against an employer from the first day in a new job. Andy McDonald, Neil Duncan-Jordan and Rachael Maskell have been among the Labour MPs to criticise the decision
Only people power can save us from populism | Letters
Timothy Garton Ash has produced an excellent list of safeguards against extremism (My guide to populist-proofing your democracy – before it’s too late, 25 November). Unfortunately, they don’t work in the long term. The finest minds of the Enlightenment devised the checks and balances of the US constitution, and an authoritarian like Donald Trump brushed them aside in two minutes.Laws and regulations to guarantee good government only work if the people want them to. If they’re not bothered, then no amount of safeguarding is of much use
A public inquiry on Brexit might make it easier for us to rejoin the EU | Letters
Better late than never, Jonathan Freedland (Rachel Reeves is studiously ignoring the cause of Britain’s woes: the Brexit-shaped hole in the roof, 21 November). Brexit was supposed to “take back control” and sort out the immigration crisis. In both respects, it failed. Polish plumbers have been replaced by Afghans in asylum hotels, and the UK has forfeited the mechanism to return them to the EU. Meanwhile, with trade, investment and labour choked off, the economy grinds along at the bottom
The Green party’s policies on Israel are appealing to young British Jews | Letter
We were fascinated to read your article on the important report by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) on Jewish voting patterns in the UK (British Jews turn to Greens and Reform UK as support for main parties drops, 20 November). This demonstrates that growing numbers of Jews are deserting the Labour and Conservative parties in favour of the Green party and Reform UK.As JPR points out, there is no symmetry here. The turn to Reform among Jewish voters is half the size of the growth in support for the party within the population as a whole. On the other hand, support for Greens among Jews is 900% the size of the turn to the Green party overall
No 10 dismisses claim that OBR revelations show Reeves misled public about need for tax rises in budget – UK politics live
Downing Street has brushed off claims that Rachel Reeves misled voters ahead of the budget about the state of the public finances.At the No 10 lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson was asked why, in her speech on 4 November, and again in a Radio 5 Live interview a few days later, she said that the downgrade in the productivity growth forecast meant meeting her fiscal rules would be very difficult.Reeves told R5L on 10 November: “It would, of course, be possible to stick with the manifesto commitments [not to raise the main taxes]. But that would require things like deep cuts in capital spending.”Asked today if these warnings meant Reeves misled the public in the run-up to the budget about the state of the public finances, the PM’s spokesperson said: “I don’t accept that,”Asked why Reeves was claiming that there was a black hole in the public finances, when the OBR today is saying there wasn’t (see 12
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