DANIEL Harford believes Round 4 could be a transformational afternoon for his Carlton team that clawed its way back from a difficult position at Fremantle Oval. 

Carlton only managed one goal in the first half, with Fremantle having the game on its terms for the majority. Phoebe McWilliams, who was presenting well and taking contested marks as the Blues' most likely target, went off with a foot injury after her first goal and didn't return. 

It forced Harford and his coaching group to shift their approach to the game, noting that the Blues were unable to move the ball their way at all in the first half. 

“We weren’t able to get any flow into our game in the first half: every time we got the ball, Freo stopped us and then they just kept us into a wedge of the ground and we kicked it long to numbers and turned it over,” Harford said.  

“Their slingshot attack was positively powerful in that first half – we had to find a way to get past that.” 

With a three-goal deficit to make up, some creative coaching in the second half was needed, to both stop Fremantle from scoring and also for Carlton to generate scores of its own.

Dropping an extra behind the ball, Harford wanted to create some run and carry in the hopes that his side could gain some inside 50 momentum. 

“We put a number behind the ball in the second half, not as a defensive mechanism but to create some run and flow and it worked,” he said. 

“Lucy McEvoy did a great job for us in that role, Keeley Sherar in the last quarter did that for us, ‘Mim’ [Hill] and ‘Abs’ [McKay] went to work in the middle of the ground but we just got some territory on the back of it.” 

Not analysing the moves too thoroughly yet in the emotion of the result, Harford said there was no choice but to shake things up with the situation the team was in, losing two players - Amelia Velardo also didn't return after a concussion - in a very tight game. 

Speaking on Kerryn Peterson, who has been playing a midfield role all season, Harford noted that she was better utilised creating opportunities rather than stopping them defensively, with some other changes out of pure necessity rather than strategy. 

“‘Kez’ has been there all year on the wing, we like that for her, it’s an opportunity for her to develop her game - the three-time All Australian defender - but that’s not going to win us games going forward: we don’t need her saving the game, we need her creating opportunities for us to win games,” he said. 

“Annie [Lee] forward, who knows, we had a couple of magnets that we just had to move because we had no choice – she kicked her first goal, Imogen Milford kicked her first goal, Phoebe McWilliams kicked her first goal for the Club, they’re all little milestones on the way.” 

Harford was also particularly complimentary of the role that Breann Moody played in the second half, bouncing back and turning the game on its head when it mattered most.

“I think she’s the most dynamic athlete in the competition, she’s remarkable,” he said. 

“I have all the time in the world for ‘Moods’. She’s still developing as a ruck, being able to command a contest and centre bounce and the stoppage, to own that and dictate what’s happening around there. 

“She wasn’t fantastic in the first half but rallied and found a way to compete again and I’m really proud of her for that. That’s the challenge for a player, to be beaten and then come back and get back on top – she did that and she owned the stoppages for most of the second half.” 

Coming off the team's second draw in as many weeks, the result this weekend felt very different to Harford, who admitted it felt like they dropped the ball last weekend, whereas this weekend showed the grit and determination of a young, evolving group. 

With the team banding together against the odds, Harford hopes this will be a game that will turn the tide for the group moving forward. 

“I thought we coughed one up last week but this week we were steaming home and we were the better team,” he said. 

“I’m enormously proud, it’s a real growth phase for us. To see a performance like that with all that was going against us shows unbelievable character, grit and spirit and shows what we do have growing in this group.”