The Crows' Erin Phillips had already been to the top of the sporting mountain three times as a basketballer - once at the Olympics, twice in the WNBL. Yesterday, playing what she says "is the best game in the world", Phillips produced a football masterclass.

Football is about getting the ball and using it effectively in the narrowest splinters of time. Phillips knew when to commit, she knew when to wait. She took the mark of the day, she won hard balls amid tangles of arms and legs.

When the Lions challenged in the third term, she kicked two calming goals. She also took to the field at the start of the game holding her baby twins.

Meanwhile, Phillips' co-captain, Chelsea Randall, played a copybook game in defence. With her bounding pace and courage in the air, Randall has been a terrific footballer for a number of years. In 2015, while working at Newman in the north of West Australia, she drove for 13 hours each weekend to play with WAFL club Swan Districts.

It's one of many amazing stories to have emerged through the AFLW, this competition stocked - by the standards of professional sport - with a host of intriguing characters like an army medic, a political adviser, a leading seaman, an army officer, a canteen cook etc.

Adelaide was one of only two teams in the AFLW with a woman coach. Bec Goddard, an officer with the Federal Police, brought together and nurtured a team drawn from 18 players in Adelaide and nine in Darwin that conducted a team meeting during grand final week on Skype. On the field, they had the characteristics of a championship team, displaying a spirit and unity that never fractured.

Brisbane entered the grand final undefeated but, in the biggest match of the year, simply did not have players with the accomplishment and football know-how of Phillips and Randall. To their credit, the Lions kept coming and, in the manner of Queenslanders in other sports, threatened to steal the game through their sheer energy and passionate commitment, beaten eventually by only six points, 4.11 (35) to 4.5 (29).

The Lions, of course, had the disappointment of having the game taken away from their home ground and transferred to the Gold Coast Suns' Metricon Stadium. But the AFLW grand final still attracted 15,000 people.

One reflection of the Lions' efforts was that they were clapped off the field after the match by their supporters.

The AFLW will only get better. The success of the inaugural season has led to a surge in the number of girls wanting to play the game. As from next year, there will be girls in the AFLW draft who will have played the game uninterrupted since Auskick.

Even in the course of the eight-week season, the standard, particularly in areas like kicking and running to position, could be seen to improve.

The Crows' first two goals in the grand final were both highly skilful snaps from wide of the goals.

The AFL and the AFLW may differ in the standard of certain skills and pace and power, but they have a common spirit which can be seen in the courage of the players, their attack on the ball, the uncomplaining manner in which collisions are initiated and received, the wholeheartedness of their commitment to their teammates.

Today, we saw another similarity - the way in which premierships are celebrated. There were tears of joy and tears of disappointment, but there were also exuberant bellows of triumph as the premiership cup was passed around and brandished aloft.

I am woman, hear me roar???