AFLW SENIOR Coach Daniel Harford was very pleased with the Blues' 24-point win over the Saints on Saturday afternoon. 

After a disappointing start to the season, Harford was hoping that today would be a turning point for his Carlton side and, after an impressive week on the track, he was full of confidence that the team would respond in Round 3. 

“I thought that we trained enormously through the week so I would’ve been disappointed if we hadn’t come out there and put on a show today,” Harford said. 

“Our focus shifted towards movement, to defence, to team as well and I think that paid dividends today.” 

Harford pointed out that chemistry was the big focus for the Blues this week and being able to find consistency with a line-up that has changed due to injury over the opening rounds of the season.

“Chemistry is the key to footy and anyone who’s played any level of footy knows that to have chemistry within the playing personnel is really important,” he said. 

“We’ve introduced a fair few new players into the group so far, another one today with Daisy Walker which was great, so it’s going to take us a little bit of time to work out what that looks like structurally and how they work together but today was a massive step forward for us.” 

It was the performance of Elise O’Dea up forward that really impressed Harford in the game, with the Senior Coach noting how proud he was to have the experienced ex-Demon in his playing group. 

“I thought she was awesome with her presence in the forward line, coming up at the footy, hunting defenders, creating space for her teammates, presenting as an option,” he said. 

“She [O’Dea] looked like the one we saw three or four years ago today and we have great belief that Elise is going to be a great player for us for a long period of time and I hope she gets a bit of love for what she did today.” 

In terms of the ever changing season that the AFLW program has been presented with over the last two years, Harford assured the media that his group weren’t going to focus on the changes that have been thrown at them. 

“The game is not played on a magnet board or a whiteboard, the scenarios you draw up very rarely happen so you have to think on the fly and this is just another situation where we just have to follow what’s happening in front of us, take the lead from the people making the decisions and see where it takes us.” 

“We’re not getting too stressed about it, we’re not talking about it, we’re just going about our business and seeing if we can make the most of that.”