Oppo Camp Non-Essendon AFLW Thread

[ghostdog]

I thought I'd start this because;

• there isn't one
• I noticed there was some trash talk on West Coast
• Most of us are still getting to know the women's team
• By extension, most of us are still getting to know the women's comp
• Here we can share what we learn and build each other's knowledge

So, I noticed that Jasmine Garner from North stacks up well. Also, the girl from GWS whose name I can't recall, Anne someone... or Alyce...

And Ebony Marinoff from Adelaide is the kind of defensive player you want in your side, averaging 11 tackles albeit 2 games into the season.

And WC are apparently as bad as a side can get but have brought in 14 new players during the off-season.

 

[Lore]

 

[Lore]

I thought I'd start this because;

• there isn't one
• I noticed there was some trash talk on West Coast
• Most of us are still getting to know the women's team
• By extension, most of us are still getting to know the women's comp
• Here we can share what we learn and build each other's knowledge

So, I noticed that Jasmine Garner from North stacks up well. Also, the girl from GWS whose name I can't recall, Anne someone... or Alyce...

And Ebony Marinoff from Adelaide is the kind of defensive player you want in your side, averaging 11 tackles albeit 2 games into the season.

And WC are apparently as bad as a side can get but have brought in 14 new players during the off-season.

We were anticipating that discussion about clubs we aren’t playing against would just go in the same non-Essendon football thread we’ve been using for AFLW discussion for the last 6 seasons…

It’s really hard to keep a discussion going unless there is sufficient interest and as much as I try, I really can’t keep that many threads going by talking to myself

 

[RedmanWasHere]

Just thinking.

Would it be wise to lift the AFLW team list limit from 30 names to about 46 names?

30 players per club is too damn small.

 

[Lore]

Just thinking.

Would it be wise to lift the AFLW team list limit from 30 names to about 46 names?

30 players per club is too damn small.

I think ~45 players per club would be required to keep an 18 team league sustainable over a full length season in order to cover injuries, etc.

But the depth of talent isn’t necessarily there. Adding 15 players to every list means finding an extra 300 odd players across the league.

One alternative if they want to keep numbers down could be a mid-year draft so they can recruit the types of players they need in order to cover injuries, instead of holding depth across the board.

Of course that also makes it difficult to pick up rookie development players or encourage NGAs or any of that too, if you only have spots for the first 30 that nearly all play every week.

 

[ghostdog]

We were anticipating that discussion about clubs we aren’t playing against would just go in the same non-Essendon football thread we’ve been using for AFLW discussion for the last 6 seasons…

It’s really hard to keep a discussion going unless there is sufficient interest and as much as I try, I really can’t keep that many threads going by talking to myself

That reminds me of the images of silent discos from a few years ago, with everyone on the dancefloor listening to their own headphones.

 

[Albertross]

Great to see a decent crowd at the Port vs Crows game. The rivalry between the clubs has transitioned to the Womens game and give it a couple of years for Port to get going, we should see some ripper games.

 

[Lore]

 

[Albertross]

Not much to say about Steve Price, except that he is a world class knob!

This is a competition that is still in its infancy, where girls have only really had the opportunity to continue playing past the age of 12/14 within the last 10 years, as most clubs or leagues did not offer any pathway for them.

We've seen the growth and development of the sport within a short time frame. The draftees are more talented year on year, with the talent pool also growing.

The Women's game will always have its detractors, and they always compare the quality of the Womens game to the Mens. A competition in its early stages of development vs one that has been played by Men for over 100 years. These same people also bang on about the quality of Women's cricket as well.

I applaud the AFL for growing the sport, for giving the younger girls that opportunity to continue playing as juniors, for giving Women the opportunity to showcase their talents.

However, they need to start looking forward to this becoming a more professional competition within the next 5 years. These athletes deserve better than a 10 match season where they also play shortened quarters.

Apologies for the rant, but people like Price give me the shits. If you dont like it, then dont watch it!

 

[Lore]

Not much to say about Steve Price, except that he is a world class knob!

This is a competition that is still in its infancy, where girls have only really had the opportunity to continue playing past the age of 12/14 within the last 10 years, as most clubs or leagues did not offer any pathway for them.

We've seen the growth and development of the sport within a short time frame. The draftees are more talented year on year, with the talent pool also growing.

The Women's game will always have its detractors, and they always compare the quality of the Womens game to the Mens. A competition in its early stages of development vs one that has been played by Men for over 100 years. These same people also bang on about the quality of Women's cricket as well.

I applaud the AFL for growing the sport, for giving the younger girls that opportunity to continue playing as juniors, for giving Women the opportunity to showcase their talents.

However, they need to start looking forward to this becoming a more professional competition within the next 5 years. These athletes deserve better than a 10 match season where they also play shortened quarters.

Apologies for the rant, but people like Price give me the shits. If you dont like it, then dont watch it!

I actually think it's quite watchable. I've never been good at watching neutral games in any sport, I always have to have a horse in the race so to speak or I just lose interest. But now that we have a team it's definitely watchable, has good intensity and we've been competitive. I'd rather watch our women than a game between Carlton and Richmond in the mens. Might change this week as I reckon we might be in for our first slaughtering

I saw some comments earlier in the week from Alicia Eva, talking about how the part-time nature of the sport and the concessions around state-based drafting that are tied to that, make it really hard for them and for equalisation because they have a tiny pool of players in NSW and now they're sharing it with Sydney. Basically until they go with a full season (a real one not a Nicole 'what is a full season?' Livingstone season) and a full time professional league it's going to be a bit stuck I guess.

There was also some comments from other journos I think around the AFL being a bit hesitant about disrupting list stability because fans are really struggling with losing their favourite players every time another wave of expansion comes through (they've had 3 in four years, which obviously we didn't have to worry about )

Be interesting to see what they do in that respect, maybe the first round becomes open draft and they give a heap of extra picks to the shittiest clubs and build them up that way.

Here;



I don't get the comments around women's cricket. It's pretty good, I'm useless at following it when they're playing in the wee hours but last summer it was on during the day and it was good! Hate Big Bash generally so more referring to the international series and the Ashes in particular.

The worst thing about it was the shortened test getting half rained out and running out of time. Being the only test of the series that was a pretty disappointing way to end it.

Even then though they have issues with not being properly resourced, apparently Mitch Starc put his hand in his own pocket to make sure the pace bowlers had a set of long stops each? Somehow we have athletes representing a wealthy country without basic equipment? wtf?

So the most disappointing thing about women's cricket basically comes down to a) there isn't enough of it and b) it isn't being treated with the respect you'd expect for an Australian international team.

 

[Old Campaigner]

Old man yells at cloud

 

[Lore]

 

[ghostdog]

Great to see a decent crowd at the Port vs Crows game. The rivalry between the clubs has transitioned to the Womens game and give it a couple of years for Port to get going, we should see some ripper games.

Pity about the spectacle though. One way traffic all afternoon, and on prime time too. Maybe the AFLW needs equalisation.

 

[ant555]

Pity about the spectacle though. One way traffic all afternoon, and on prime time too. Maybe the AFLW needs equalisation.

The game needs to be professional. There was always a view that this year would see some uncompetitive games due to the player pool being stretched.
As soon as we have full time players then they can adjust the draft so it is normal and not like it is now where all the Victorian girls can nominate to stay in Victoria.

 

[ghostdog]

I actually think it's quite watchable. I've never been good at watching neutral games in any sport, I always have to have a horse in the race so to speak or I just lose interest. But now that we have a team it's definitely watchable, has good intensity and we've been competitive. I'd rather watch our women than a game between Carlton and Richmond in the mens. Might change this week as I reckon we might be in for our first slaughtering

I saw some comments earlier in the week from Alicia Eva, talking about how the part-time nature of the sport and the concessions around state-based drafting that are tied to that, make it really hard for them and for equalisation because they have a tiny pool of players in NSW and now they're sharing it with Sydney. Basically until they go with a full season (a real one not a Nicole 'what is a full season?' Livingstone season) and a full time professional league it's going to be a bit stuck I guess.

There was also some comments from other journos I think around the AFL being a bit hesitant about disrupting list stability because fans are really struggling with losing their favourite players every time another wave of expansion comes through (they've had 3 in four years, which obviously we didn't have to worry about )

Be interesting to see what they do in that respect, maybe the first round becomes open draft and they give a heap of extra picks to the shittiest clubs and build them up that way.

Here;



I don't get the comments around women's cricket. It's pretty good, I'm useless at following it when they're playing in the wee hours but last summer it was on during the day and it was good! Hate Big Bash generally so more referring to the international series and the Ashes in particular.

The worst thing about it was the shortened test getting half rained out and running out of time. Being the only test of the series that was a pretty disappointing way to end it.

Even then though they have issues with not being properly resourced, apparently Mitch Starc put his hand in his own pocket to make sure the pace bowlers had a set of long stops each? Somehow we have athletes representing a wealthy country without basic equipment? wtf?

So the most disappointing thing about women's cricket basically comes down to a) there isn't enough of it and b) it isn't being treated with the respect you'd expect for an Australian international team.

I really think the AFL needs to invest in school programs in growth areas. I live only 2 and a half hours from Western Sydney but last I checked there was no program available through which either Sydney club could/would send a couple of players or even club reps to our local school to introduce the game to kids. I'm not sure if the AFL offers a supplement to growth area clubs to grow the game at a grass roots level like that, but they're not doing themselves any favours west of Sydney.

 

[ant555]

 

[ghostdog]

The game needs to be professional. There was always a view that this year would see some uncompetitive games due to the player pool being stretched.
As soon as we have full time players then they can adjust the draft so it is normal and not like it is now where all the Victorian girls can nominate to stay in Victoria.

Absolutely, so I can understand the desire to play them in prime time. I reckon there would have been some arguments about which games to broadcast though.

 

[Lore]

Pity about the spectacle though. One way traffic all afternoon, and on prime time too. Maybe the AFLW needs equalisation.

It has equalisation, with the salary tiers instead of open field and a cap, but the problem with having salaries that most of them can’t live on, is they all have other jobs and salaries that they can live on, many of which are also at the club or related to the club, or tied to a particular state.

It makes the temptation to move clubs for maybe 5-10k a bit less of a draw, especially if you’re at a club that’s successful (depending on what your motivation is to play the sport). Certainly moving interstate is difficult if it means you have to find a flexible side job that pays the bills.

 

[Albertross]

Not a bad effort by Howarth to literally leap over a player the way she did. Not sure ive ever seen that before.

Pity that they changed camera angles mid leap.

 

[raskolnikov]

The St.Kilda player channelling Nick Riewoldt.

 

[Albertross]

Price doubling down on his recent comments about AFLW, cites poor crowd numbers, but dismisses the Crows vs Port 20 000 crowd as simply because there is nothing else to do in Adelaide.

In response to low scores at the turn of last century, when the Mens game was at it's infancy, just as the Womens game is now, blames it on a lack of transport, ie: horse and cart.

What a dinosaur!

I have 3 daughters, 2 of them never had the opportunity to keep playing AFL in their teens, only the youngest did. Where as my Son was afforded the opportunity to keep playing due to his gender.

Now that we are at least trying to shift the balance, and give everyone with an ounce of talent an opportunity to showcase their potential, we still have like Price sticking the boot in. What a *******!

 

[Lore]

This is quite an interesting article.

She makes a good point about the blowout scores that have come through with Adelaide playing Port in the showdown for example: not necessarily because of skill or something inherently wrong with the game, but because one is a three time premiership team that has had 7 years to establish their game plan and learn and practice their roles and skills together, while the other is new, made up of a lot of draft kids and will take time to grow into its potential.

We will still need equalisation through priority picks in the draft (and perhaps the first round nationalised), but the scores of individual games isn’t the problem so much as a symptom of an issue that will largely resolve with the passage of time.

Forget the score, and ignore the sexist narrative that women’s footy is boring

The noise around the AFLW recently has been about score blowouts. This isn’t because players aren’t up to the level. Nor should it be attributed to a sexist narrative that women’s footy is boring.

www.theage.com.au

 

[RedmanWasHere]

Whenever there's a thumping, equalisation always comes up.

A thrashing comes about because one team is able to capitalise more than the other.

 

[Lore]

Interesting article from the end of August about the fixturing issues faced by AFL House in moving the AFLW season to spring, many of the grounds are having pitches dropped in for cricket season, trying to fix in the time slots for games around the men's finals series.

Through the back part of the season you've also got the T20 World Cup as well, which is even more limiting than it otherwise might be, with Carrara and Kardinia Park both being signed up to host those games and therefore not available for footy.

And all the same issues are even more problematic if you want to extend the season beyond ten rounds as well... (unless you run the women's comp during the winter footy season of course!)

Plus issues with fixturing women's games as curtain raisers for men's finals, and in particular people who wanted to watch the AFLW game having to shell out for a mens finals ticket to get into the ground. Eep. I guess on a normal day you just make the men's tickets required to enter after half-time or something, unless you're expecting it to be a fully ticketed event. But finals ought to be the latter.

https://www.codesports.com.au/afl/aflw/bold-moves-the-inside-story-of-how-the-aflw-was-shifted-from-summer-to-spring/news-story/d14856418e34d180d6ad553e7c3612f9

 

[Lore]

Fearless documentary on Disney+ is quite good — or the start of it is as I need to watch the rest still.

Type of thing to watch with your other half, your kids etc.