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Melbourne will face Adelaide in an AFLW preliminary final after making the most of blustery conditions to beat Fremantle by 17 points in their qualifying clash.
Melbourne coach Mick Stinear has heaped praise on Karen Paxman after the stand-in skipper starred in a 17-point qualifying final win over Fremantle in hot and blustery conditions at Casey Fields.
With star captain Daisy Pearce out injured, the Demons led from start to finish on Saturday to score a 5.10 (40) to 3.5 (23) win that set up a preliminary final against the Crows in Adelaide.
"She's always been a hard worker," Stinear said of Paxman.
"She's always competed from contest to contest but this year she's matching that with physicality and really imposing herself on games.
"She was brilliant today and led the way well."
Paxman gathered 20 possessions, while Maddison Gay was also influential with 19 touches and a goal in the win that ended the Dockers' season.
Fremantle coach Trent Cooper was left to rue his team's inability to take advantage of first use of the stiff breeze.
"Melbourne were really good in that first quarter ... that breeze was really strong," Cooper said.
"We won the toss and kicked with it for a change and it was probably a tactical error. We should have gone into it (first).
"But they were just first to the ball and cleaner."
Fremantle star Kiara Bowers laid 17 tackles and amassed 20 disposals, but the visitors struggled to find their rhythm throughout in the tricky conditions.
The Demons poured on the pressure from the outset - they had 11 inside-50s to one at one stage - and led by six points at quarter-time thanks to Alyssa Bannan's clever goal in traffic.
Melbourne made better use of the wind in the second term and skipped away from the visitors.
Shelley Scott did the damage with back-to-back goals, the Demons keeping Fremantle scoreless to lead by 19 points at halftime.
Ashley Sharp's long-range goal soon after the restart sparked the Dockers into action.
Brenna Tarrant hit back for Melbourne with a priceless goal against the wind, her first at AFLW level, but majors to Sabreena Duffy and Gemma Houghton slashed the margin to four points at the last break.
Fremantle have earned a reputation for finishing games strongly this season, but could not find a way through the well-organised Demons defence.
Melbourne peppered the goals with the final use of the breeze before Gay put the icing on the cake with the only goal of the quarter with 12 seconds remaining.
