ESSENDON
Twelve minutes into Saturday afternoon the Royals were two goals up, and by half time the game was gone from Heidelberg United.
Ayano Koizumi scored on eleven minutes and Kelli McGroarty added the second a minute later, which is about as fast as a Saturday can be settled. Maggie Jenkins made it three in the forty-third and that was the margin at the interval. Sarah Assumma pulled one back for Heidelberg five minutes after the restart, and the last forty minutes produced nothing further, so 3-1 was the finish and a sixth straight league win was banked.
McGroarty’s goal was the one that will be remembered longest. It was her thirteenth consecutive league game with a goal, and there is no longer anyone above her in the record. The previous best in the NPLW era was twelve, by Melina Ayres between 2017 and 2018, a run that crossed a season break and had a missed round inside it. McGroarty’s thirteen sits entirely within one season, with every fixture played and none skipped, so it stands on the strict reading and the loose one alike. Eighteen goals have come inside the run since Round Thirteen on 16 May.
It also takes her to thirty-two league goals for the season, which is the fifth-highest single-season tally anyone has managed in this competition since it took its current form in 2016. Only two seasons in that time have produced more, and the last player to reach these numbers did it seven years ago. For a division where last year’s golden boot was won on eighteen, the scale of it is worth sitting with.
The afternoon did the necessary league work as well. Second place on fifty-six points from twenty-five games now cannot be lost, because Bulleen Lions in third can only reach fifty-five. That confirms a top-two finish and everything that comes with it, which is the bye through the elimination round and a home preliminary final at Cross Keys on 13 September. Nine wins from eleven at Cross Keys this season is the reason that matters.
What is still open is the Premiership, and it stayed open only because the Royals won. Box Hill United took all three points at Keilor Park on the same afternoon and hold their one-point lead at fifty-seven. The Royals finish away at South Melbourne at Lakeside Stadium on 30 August, and Box Hill travel to Melbourne City, who sit last on seven points, so nobody at Cross Keys is pretending the odds have changed much.
The maths, though, is not quite as narrow as a single point suggests. A Royals win and any Box Hill slip hands over the Premiership. So does a Royals draw if Box Hill lose, because the two would finish level on fifty-seven and goal difference is the first tie-break in this competition, where the Royals are nine goals better off at plus forty-eight against plus thirty-nine. Seventy-six goals scored is the most in the division and twenty-eight conceded is bettered only by South Melbourne, which is the sort of season that deserves to still be alive in the last round.
Heidelberg finish ninth and had nothing on the line, which is not the same as having nothing to offer. They were Premiers twelve months ago and they beat the Royals in last year’s finals, and the three meetings of 2026 have gone a draw, a cup final and this. One afternoon out of three is a fair return for a side rebuilding without the striker who won the golden boot.
Lakeside on Sunday, then a preliminary final at Cross Keys in September.
Finals footy is almost here!