Waalitj Marawar were unable to stop an accurate and efficient Geelong outfit on Saturday, falling by 33 points at Mineral Resources Park.

Despite the result, senior coach Daisy Pearce has praised the efforts of young defender Beth Schilling, and highlighted her contributions in this game, and throughout the season.

“Beth has been incredible, her and Zoe (Wakfer) all season, in the absence of Soph McDonald who has been our lynch pin down back, to have 20-year-old Zoe and 21-year-old Beth kind of holding down our defence and taking the biggest jobs every week, it’s pretty impressive.

“Beth in particular, she has been on our list for three years, in and out of the side, the way that she’s developed her game and confidence this year has been unreal.

“Some of the one on ones she wins, and the bits that don’t even come on the stats sheet, I think she had six marks and 17 touches today.

“But the bit that I love is that she competes in the air, gets her opponent done, and then follows up through the contest to tackle someone else’s opponent, it’s just helps us so much.

“Rising Star nominee, but she’s probably in the All Australian conversation and today’s game would have done her chances no harm.”

With Saturday’s loss ruling out a finals berth for the developing Waalitj Marawar side, Pearce said the team’s struggles in front of goals the past two weeks have been costly.

“Plenty of positives (to take out of the game), probably disappointing again with our finishing, that probably let us down early,” Pearce said.

“I thought we had a really strong first quarter into the breeze, we managed to keep them to just two scoring shots and generate a lot of looks ourselves, but didn’t finish.

“The power of that scoreboard pressure, another week in a row, probably cost us a little bit.”

Geelong’s star forward Aishling Moloney dominated for her side on Saturday, kicking an impressive six goals, and now leads the league for goals this season (21).

“She’s a good player, she was impressive, and credit to her,” Pearce said.

“Zoe Wakfer had some really good moments on her, and when Zoe’s positioning was a little bit off, Moloney punished, and her finishing into the breeze a number of times was impressive.

“So hats off to her, that’s the bench mark where we want to get to.

“Beth Schilling had a go on her, Beth I thought was outstanding all day down back playing on a number of opponents and we rolled her over onto Moloney to try a different look at one stage.

“A big part of it is credit to Geelong and Moloney with the marks they were able to get inside 50 and their finishing, and at our end of the ground, we’ve got to keep working on our finishing.

“It’s a big part of the game, and clearly over the last couple of week, it’s something that we need to keep working on.”

Wrapping up their most successful season to date, Waalitj’s 2024 campaign will come to an end on the road, taking on Sydney at Henson Park on Saturday.

“We’ll be playing to win, I think today makes our finals chances pretty much done, but with where we’re at with our journey, winning has been hard to come by,” Pearce said.

“Every opportunity to keep building a winning culture and competing and playing to win is really important, and then bigger picture, understanding that every game is a chance to add little bits to different players’ development.

“Whether that’s Roxy (Roux) in the ruck today, we tried a few different things, she even went back at stages today, we’ll just look at it through the lens of ‘how do we continue to develop our players and game style’.”