"WE LOVE when wingers kick goals!”
That was what Keeley Skepper had to say following winger Dayna Finn’s match-winner against Collingwood on Sunday.
With her first AFLW goal coming in dramatic fashion, Finn says she was the beneficiary of a whole-team performance.
“Kicking the game-winner was good, but it was off the back of all our hard work previously,” Finn said.
“I just happened to stay involved in the play and ‘Moods’ tapped the ball down to me, and just caught it perfectly and kicked it.”
Joining The Rundown podcast on Tuesday, Skepper and Finn discussed the four-point win over the Pies, noting the resilience the group showed following Collingwood’s late flurry of second-half goals to put them in front.
“I think one side of the game that we probably were focusing on the last few weeks has been the mental side of the game,” Finn said.
“Getting knocked down and teams kicking goals on us is natural, but how we respond to that is what we’ve been working on, and I think we responded very well on Sunday.”
In addition, Skepper noted that the team’s connection and unity have really helped in how the team responds when the opposition brings the heat.
“We’ve got our leaders helping us out with how we bounce back which has been really good,” Skepper said.
“We’re really united in how we respond – it’s not just one person who’s really good at bouncing back.
“I think we’re all united in the way we react to the way other teams kick goals on us and it helps us be more resilient going into games moving forward.”
With just one game left of Carlton’s 2024 season – facing arch-rivals Essendon on Saturday night at IKON Park – the players have turned their focus to the connection between one another.
While balancing the small forward and wing roles has come with both its challenges and rewards, Skepper says the growth she’s seen on the field this season has been promising.
“I’m loving the forward line and the wing as well. I’m playing a little bit more forward this year, I’m really enjoying it,” she said.
“I think we’ve really developed as a forward line this year. The first couple of games our connection wasn’t quite there, it was a bit of a different lineup compared to last year.
“I think our connection and the way we’re moving together as one has been really good recently. We’ve had a few different people down there the last couple of weeks, and I think our communication has been really good.”
Finn also noted that the connection between each of the lines has also improved compared to the start of the season, something that the group are aiming to keep developing.
“Connection has been one of our biggest focuses this season, and the connection throughout every line,” Finn said.
“In our team meeting the mids said our connection against Collingwood has been the best it’s ever been, which was really good to see and really good to see us put things we’ve been working on into practice.”
With Carlton wearing their Indigenous guernsey this week, the name of the artwork featured - ‘Ngiyanhi’, meaning ‘we all’ - is going to be front of mind.
