GEORGIE PARKER: North Melbourne and Brisbane forging a rivalry that is defining the AFLW grand final

Growing up as an Adelaide Crows fan, I was taught to hate Port Adelaide. No questions asked. No nuance. No room for negotiation. Showdown week split the city (and my own family) cleanly in two.

The winner earned bragging rights that lasted months while the loser copped it until the teams met again. The 2007 grand final loss for Port Adelaide was basically a premiership win for a Crows fan — that’s how much you disliked them.

That’s the power of a rivalry. It adds an emotional current you can’t at all manufacture.

But as the AFLW continues to grow and carve out its own identity, a beautiful shift is happening.

The women are beginning to build rivalries of their own.

Rivalries not inherited from decades of AFL history or a century of the VFL, but rivalries created on their terms, in their league, through the moments and tensions that belong entirely to them.

When Brisbane and North Melbourne run out for Saturday’s AFLW grand final, it won’t just be the decisive chapter in another season, it will mark the third straight year these two sides have fought for the premiership.

In a competition still writing its identity, this match-up has become the AFLW’s clearest example of a new-aged rivalry, one born not from old grudges passed down generations, but from fresh, fierce patterns emerging on the field.

Brisbane won the first of these grand final meetings in 2023, but North Melbourne hit back savagely a year later, restricting the Lions to a single goal in a performance that shifted the balance of power. Since that day, the Kangaroos haven’t dropped a game.

These moments are the building blocks of something new. They’re happening now, created by the women who are playing the game and shaping the league.

And while three years might seem brief, in the AFLW it’s long enough for something real, and something personal, to take hold.

No club has lived under pressure quite like Brisbane. The Lions have reached seven grand finals since the league began, a staggering achievement that has made them both the standard and the target.

They have spent years as the hunted, the team everyone aims to topple simply because they’ve been at the top for so long.

North Melbourne’s captain Emma Kearney understands that more than most.

One of the most fierce competitors, she brings a presence that forces opposition players and crowds to feel her impact.

She’s unapologetic, thrives in big moments, and happily leans into the spectacle if it gives her team an edge.

To her, Brisbane aren’t just opponents, they’re part of an elite rivalry she believes defines the AFLW’s highest standard.

“What we’re doing at North Melbourne and Brisbane is setting the standard, and we need the other teams to come up to that standard,” she said.

“I’m happy being at the top for now. We’ll keep trying to be better, and it’s now up to the other teams to try and get to our level.”

It’s not only Brisbane and North contributing to the AFLW’s emerging hostilities. Rivalries in this league don’t take decades to build; they erupt through moments that feel raw and authentic.

Hawthorn’s refusal to form a guard of honour for Jasmine Garner’s 100th game, a milestone that carries extra weight given the league’s shorter seasons, was one of those sparks.

A week later, in a final, Kearney was revving up the crowd to boo her throughout the game, embracing the theatre in a way that only enhances the league’s personality.

North embarrassed the Hawks in that game, with Hawthorn not scoring a single major, and I can’t help but think North made a point of making them think twice about disrespecting one of their own again.

These moments are the building blocks of something new.

They’re happening now, created by the women who are playing the game and shaping the league.

Brisbane versus North Melbourne, with three grand finals in a row, is the clearest expression of that. It’s the first true heavyweight rivalry born entirely within the AFLW’s own timeline.

And yet, this new era doesn’t wipe away the old. Rivalries like Port Adelaide versus Adelaide, Collingwood versus Carlton, West Coast versus Fremantle will always exist. They’re stitched into club fabric, supporter identity, and state history.

But now, the AFLW gets to add to them. Expand them. Complicate them. Create new stories that sit alongside the old ones.

On Saturday afternoon, Brisbane and North Melbourne will write the next chapter of a rivalry that belongs solely to their competition, their players and their fans.

The AFLW isn’t just building a league. It’s building its own lore, and we get to watch it come to life in real time.