THERE will be no more "upset wins" for the Brisbane Lions. After accounting for Melbourne in pouring rain at Casey Fields in Melbourne's outer south-east on the opening weekend of the NAB AFL Women's competition, the Lions took the trip across the country to face Fremantle and won convincingly. 

With two wins from two road trips under their belt, Craig Starcevich's team play three of their next four matches at home. The Lions are suddenly serious contenders for the Grand final (with a seven-week season in place, the only final will be between the top two sides).

Aside from marquee players Tayla Harris and Sabrina Frederick-Traub, the Lions were a team of players relatively unknown outside of their home state before the start of the competition.

The squad has only five non-Queenslanders, two being Frederick-Traub (WA) and priority player Kaitlyn Ashmore (Victoria), who were signed before the draft.

Perhaps the Lions' women were unfairly lumped with their male counterparts, who have been stuck near the bottom of the ladder for the past few years. In any case, the women were not expected to be competitive in the inaugural AFLW season.

Starcevich has been the female football high-performance coach with AFL Queensland since 2014, and already had a working relationship with some of his players, including gun forward Harris.

A premiership player with Collingwood in 1990, Starcevich coached the Western Bulldogs in two exhibition matches in 2015. He was also the high-performance manager for the Brisbane Lions from 1996-2005, including their premiership era of 2001-03.

He told AFL.com.au before the season began he hoped his side would play an "attractive brand" of football, and would be up for the contest.

"We've got a couple of decent tall forwards, we've got good speed and run and we've got good defenders. We've got some nice balance," Starcevich said.

In a competition where elite players are standing out, the Lions are getting an even contribution, with the finishing skills of Harris and forward Jess Wuetschner icing on the cake. 

The pride of central Australia

Adelaide has made an equally impressive start to the season, comfortably accounting for Greater Western Sydney in round one before upsetting early premiership favourites in the Western Bulldogs on Friday night at Whitten Oval.

The Crows are the pride of central Australia, successfully combining a team made up of two training camps – one based in Adelaide, and the other in Darwin. They now take on Carlton at home, in a top-of-the-table clash. Look out for a feature on the red-hot Crows later in the week on AFL.com.au.

Fremantle's talent drain

Being the only team from Western Australia, and with full access to local players (compared to Victorian teams, which had to split local talent between four clubs), Fremantle was expected to feature heavily in the AFLW season. But with two losses from two matches, the Dockers will have to win all five remaining matches to have a chance of featuring in the Grand Final.

However, Fremantle could have been in a different situation had they retained players who were selected as marquee players by other teams. They lost access to players including stars Chelsea Randall and Kellie Gibson (Adelaide), Frederick-Traub (Brisbane Lions), Emma King (Collingwood) and Emma Swanson and Renee Forth (GWS, although Forth will not play this season after an ACL injury).

Alex Williams (a Giants priority player) and Aimee Schmidt (the No.17 pick in the AFLW draft, also with GWS) are also from Western Australia.

That's three forwards, three midfielders, one defender and one ruck (counting Frederick-Traub as a forward, instead of ruck). That's a decent chunk of talent Fremantle does not have.

A six-quarter build-up

Melbourne took six quarters to really stamp its mark on the AFLW competition. While the Demons did play in atrocious conditions in round one, by half-time of their round two match against Collingwood at Ikon Park, they were 19 points down and yet to take a mark inside their forward 50 in one-and-half matches.

With nothing to lose, the Demons came out with a more effective approach in the second half, playing faster, more attacking footy.

The shorter kicking distance of the women often results in forwards being sucked up the ground in order to compete for the ball. The quicker Demons, such as Cat Phillips (who kicked two goals in five minutes in the third quarter) were able to outrun their opponents and swoop on loose balls kicked inside the vacant forward-50. It's a style Adelaide has been using to great effect, and if Melbourne is able to reproduce that sort of form consistently, it'll win more games than it loses.

What now for the Magpies?

Collingwood has lost its first two games, and its pre-season goal of finishing in the top two is looking highly unlikely.

The Magpies have struggled to click, and have played only one quarter of good football – the first quarter against Melbourne, when they kicked three goals. Collingwood has managed only five goals in two matches, and coach Wayne Siekman is under no illusions about the challenges his team faces.

"There's a small window now, [but we can't make] errors," Siekman said after the match on Saturday night.

"Five and two (wins and losses) with a good percentage could get you there, considering the competition's so even... [but] if we lose, that's it." 

Undisciplined Dogs

The Western Bulldogs' loss to Adelaide on Friday night puts the early flag favourites right back in the pack. The Bulldogs appeared undisciplined at times, giving away silly free kicks and several 50-metre penalties. They conceded a whopping 30 free kicks, for only 15 in return. Asked about it after the match, coach Paul Groves had no excuse, conceding the Dogs were "sloppy" and second to the ball.

"You get that when the opposition want to win the footy more and I reckon that showed in that free-kick count," Groves said.

Also, the Bulldogs were wasteful up forward, kicking two goals and 11 behinds. Groves would also be wishing for a Katie Brennan clone – the marquee forward was effective when moved into the midfield, but the Dogs didn't seem to have a target inside 50 without her. 

The talking point

Magpie forward Sophie Casey's crude hit on Meg Downie saw the Melbourne defender knocked out for several minutes and stretchered from the ground in the fourth quarter. She only regained consciousness once in the rooms, and was taken to hospital for observation with a severe concussion. Casey was reported on the spot for rough conduct, and was quite upset after the match. On Monday afternoon, Casey was handed a three-week suspension (to be cut to two if she pleads guilty), a significant portion of the seven-week season.

The incident is sure to be closely analysed, coming in the early stages of a joint AFL-Monash University study into the long-term effects of concussion.

All eight AFLW teams have the option of taking part in the study by having players wear sensors taped behind their ears during matches. The sensors measure the force from contact to the head, and how quickly the head jolts at the moment of impact. Unfortunately, Melbourne players were not wearing the sensors on the weekend.

Stars of the week

Adelaide forward Sarah Perkins has been a revelation. She finished third in the VFL Women's goalkicking in 2016 playing for the Eastern Devils, but was not drafted despite losing close to 40kg in six months to improve her chances.

Adelaide signed her as a free agent the day following the draft, after industry talent officials suggested she was a good fit. The 23-year-old truck courier dubbed 'Tex' kicked two goals against the Bulldogs after also playing well on the opening weekend against the Giants.

Brisbane's Tayla Harris took six contested marks and kicked two goals against Fremantle, while the three Ps – Karen Paxman, Daisy Pearce and Cat Phillips – kickstarted Melbourne's come-from-behind win over the Magpies.

Bulldogs midfielder Emma Kearney continued to accumulate the footy (46 disposals in two weeks), while GWS captain Amanda Farrugia, normally a midfielder, played in defence and kept Carlton's Darcy Vescio relatively quiet.

Don't you love 'local' footy?

Fremantle hosted the Brisbane Lions at Fremantle Oval, where a capacity crowd of just over 10,000 witnessed the Dockers' first home game – and were treated to the ground's unusual siren, which was more like an emergency services siren than the type normally heard in footy games.