CAPTAIN Rebecca Beeson produced a career-best goalkicking performance as the GIANTS delivered a big early-season upset, with a 12-point home win over 2025 finalist West Coast.
The GIANTS, who finished 17th last year with just two wins, broke open a close game at ENGIE Stadium, with three successive goals in four minutes in the third quarter.
West Coast kicked the last three goals of the game on Sunday but the GIANTS hung on to register an 8.6 (54) to 6.6 (42) win, its first in four attempts at the venue.
Beeson kicked two opportunistic efforts and forward Tarni Evans booted her third goal of the game to set up a 17-point lead at three-quarter time.
The veteran midfielder bagged her third major early in the last quarter and Mikayla Pauga blew the margin out to 29 points when her kick for goal took a favourable bounce. Beeson had never kicked more than one goal in a match in her previous 73 AFLW games.
Keeley Skepper and Isabella Shannon kicked goals to reduce the margin to 17 with just over nine minutes left and Charlotte Thomas added another with just over a minute remaining.
The first half was a tight, low-scoring affair, with Evans kicking a goal from a set shot and the Eagles' Amy Franklin responding in kind.
A Georgia Garnett snap regained the lead for the GIANTS, but Kellie Gibson prodded the ball over from a couple of metres out right on quarter-time to give West Coast a three-point lead.
An Evans snap provided the only goal of the second quarter, with the GIANTS leading by four at half-time.
The lead changed hands again when Eagles star Ella Roberts took a mark and wheeled around and kicked a booming snap, but Beeson replied almost immediately and the GIANTS took control.
Eagles duo Isabella Lewis and Thomas were the leading possession getters with 27 and 24 respectively.
GIANTS star Alyce Parker tallied 23 touches and won a match-high 10 clearances.
GIANTS break ENGIE Stadium hoodoo
By defeating West Coast, the GIANTS conquered a long-standing hoodoo, securing its first ever AFLW win at ENGIE Stadium. Having not played at the venue in over three years – and holding a winless record there since a 2020 semi-final loss to Melbourne – the GIANTS finally broke through on home turf. Overcoming the drought establishes a strong home-ground foundation to begin the 2026 season and could give the team a valuable mental lift as it looks to rise up the ladder.
GIANTS 2.1 3.3 6.5 8.6 (54)
WEST COAST 2.4 2.5 3.6 6.6 (42)
GOALS
GIANTS: Evans 3, Beeson 3, Garnett, Pauga
West Coast: Franklin, Gibson, Roberts, Skepper, Shannon, Thomas
