A NEW era for the Swan Districts WAFLW team got underway on Saturday against Claremont at Revo Fitness Stadium with a new coach, Ben Bowness, at the helm with a host of debutants and new faces on show.
Millie Edgar, Tayla Thorn, Keira Kennedy, Hannah Plummer and Emma Humphries all made their WAFLW debuts with Swan Districts on Saturday, where Claremont prevailed 7.5 (47) to 4.7 (31).
The goals for Swan Districts throughout the game were kicked by Courtney Zappara, Indiana West, Hope Ugle-Hayward and Emily McGuire.
Exciting young gun Carys D’Addario had an impressive opening to the new season for Swans finishing with 18 possessions to go with seven tackles, four inside-50 entries and three marks.
New recruit Emma Humphries showed her quality too with 16 disposals while Naomi Baker finished with 14 touches and six marks.
Ugle-Hayward also had 13 disposals, Lily Paterson 13, Megan Carron 12 and Isabella Edgley 12.
Lauren Quaife battled hard in the ruck as well for 30 hit outs.
Swan Districts made the perfect start to the new season away from home with Courtney Zappara managing to kick a goal in less than a minute after the opening siren.
Claremont was able to steady after that hot start from Swans and kicked the last two goals of the opening term to head into the quarter-time break leading by seven points.
Emily Bonser then kicked the only two goals for either side in the second quarter for Claremont to give the Tigers a 21-point edge heading into the main break.
Swan Districts again started the second half strongly and this time after a couple of behinds from Emily McGuire and then a significant delay, Indiana West kicked her team’s second goal of the afternoon and soon after the margin was back to just 11 points.
However, Claremont finished the extended third quarter strongly with goals from Charlotte Tompkin and Taylah Orzel to be back on top by 23 points at three quarter-time.
Swan Districts weren’t going down without a fight, though, and two goals in the opening 10 minutes of the final term suddenly made it an 11-point ball game.
Claremont, though, did respond with the last goal of the contest from Bec Anderson to end up securing the 16-point win.
In the Rogers Cup match up it was victory for Swan Districts who defeated Claremont 7.12 (54) to 6.8 (44).
Swans made a terrific start kicking the only three goals of the first quarter and then it was two goals apiece in the second term with Swan Districts going into half-time leading by 15 points.
Claremont might have outscored Swans four goals to two in the second half, but the black-and-whites still prevailed by 10 points on the back of an amazing six-goal performance from Madison Fisher.