Lowther on the Focus Against North Melbourne

They are strong across all lines, just like all the top sides are.

Their midfield clearly is something to try and negate with the likes of Garner and Riddell, who are so damaging plus with their second string mids who are just as powerful and dynamic. The midfield battle is going to be really important for us to manage, their outside game is really fast and territory based.

We need to limit their opportunities to get the ball forward with some flow, they are a great control team as well.

Trying to negate their influential players is going to be a big part of our planning, but we think we can match them at both ends of the ground. 

Lowther on Takeaways from Week 1

We take away a lot from that game against Melbourne.

The fact that we have been playing close games for the last few seasons against the top four or five teams, shows that we are playing good enough to be around the mark. But also it highlighted some moments throughout the game where if we get a few things wrong, it doesn't lead to the outcome we want.

There was a few things against the Demons where if we had our time again, we would be a little bit sharper in a few areas. There are learnings around those moments in the game, we just didn't get that part right.

There is always things you take out of the game, so going into this weekend against North Melbourne if we can transfer some of those learnings that we were exposed to last week, it will be a good thing for our group. 

Lowther on those pushing for selection

Bella Smith did a good job around stoppages in our match simulation, it was a highly contested game due to the weather. She has shown that she is getting better and better with her stoppage craft and drive, again she is someone else who is pushing our midfield to get better from our second tier.

Then you have got Bryde O'Rourke, once the game opened up she showed her run and pace on the outside as well and finished off with a nice goal.

The rest who played are still pushing, Mel Bragg came back really sharp after an injury layoff during the preseason. 

Lowther on the teams growth and development

We didn't think our practice matches were anywhere near the standard that we needed them to be, for the progression from last year to this year.

The Collingwood game we were scratchy, Essendon to their credit took away our ability to win the ball and our contest method was substandard for what we expect.

To play round one with the level of intensity that is required was a really positive sign, we made some giant leaps in a really short time.

For our opening game we were pretty sharp, it showed significant strides in our game awareness and our IQ around what is required against the best teams.