With about three minutes to go before half-time in the game that would decide whether North Melbourne would set the record for the longest winning streak in the almost 130-year history of the VFL/AFL/AFLW, Jasmine Garner – a champion in a team of champions – picked the ball up just inside the boundary.
The Roos had not had it their own way – the second-placed Hawks had kicked the only goal of the second quarter, and were just nine points down.
Garner was facing the boundary when she collected the ball, but shook her hips to shrug an opponent, kept her arms free, turned and handballed on her left to Amy Smith.
Smith is the first father-daughter player in the club’s history; Shaun Smith took the AFL mark of the century, but now he delights in being known around the club as “Amy’s dad”.
Smith shovelled the ball on to Bella Eddey, who was still up against the boundary, 35m out. Seemingly without a thought, without even needing to consider the difficulty of what she was trying to do, she snapped it through.
Before the half was up, the Roos goalled again, and the game was basically over, history secured.
The Roos have now won more games in succession than any other team in the VFL/AFL/AFLW: 24.
They have surpassed the record of the 1952-53 Geelong VFL team, a team coached by the legendary Reg Hickey in an era where Essendon had a Stawell Gift winner on the wing, and Fitzroy were known as the Gorillas.
The last time the Kangaroos didn’t win was in a draw, against Geelong, in round two last season. Their unbeaten streak – 26 games – is equal to that same Geelong side from seven decades ago.
There is no telling where North’s dominance will end; they have a percentage of more than 320.
In the 12 game season, they have won three more games than any other side. But it is the way in which they win, too: they have conceded less than four goals a game, while scoring an average of 12 themselves.
Garner was playing her 100th game, is in her first season as captain, and is routinely turning in performances that can scarcely be believed: six goals and 31 disposals in round two, four and 29 in round eight, two and 30+ disposals in a handful of other games.
But on every line, they have players who are among the best in the competition: Libby Birch in defence, Ash Riddell in the midfield, Tahlia Randall up forward.
They have a seemingly bottomless well of talent; Blaithin Bogue, from County Fermanagh, hadn’t played a game of AFLW before this season: she is now the third leading goalscorer in the league.
When they last lost, against Brisbane in the 2023 grand final, they seemed bullied, slow, indecisive, unable to regularly string enough kicks together to get it from one end of Ikon Park to another.
Now they are a juggernaut, seemingly more skilled, more powerful, better in every way than every other team.
Riddell said after the game that coach Darren Crocker had made no mention of the impending milestone. Crocker was a player the last time North Melbourne had a team in the AFL even as remotely successful as this one.
You could be forgiven for thinking his role this season has been akin to Jim Pike aboard Phar Lap, but he has given the whip whenever he sees the slightest slip in standards, when the impeccable structure the Roos have behind the ball starts to sag, when exits from stoppages look a little easy.
Crocker’s side are brilliant, but they also seem stronger and fitter, punishing sessions at Arden Street Oval allowing them to maintain their best for longer than their rivals.
There is a sense that the record does not matter, however, unless they also better that Geelong side in another way: by winning back-to-back premierships.
If they manage that, they will secure another record: the first club in the AFLW to win successive flags.
