Women's Footy AFLW Bulldogs - 2022 Round 1 vs Demons

[Pugz89]

I'm sorry you feel that way, but as I explained above there are reasons to why we have been hit harder than others and it's because we run a successful program.



As tough as it is we have a great program and we are one of the top supported teams in the competition with our home games averaging the highest among Victorian clubs.

I know it can be tough sometimes but the club is in a great position to be the benchmark AFLW club for years to come. If we lose one or two players a year it's a small price to pay really. The Whitten Oval is going to be an amazing venue in 5 years.

Don't get me wrong I totally think there are many flaws with how the AFLW is being run at league level and the ASS is providing weaker clubs with a big loophole. We have so many staff and players who are going to stick around for years to come and they certainly deserve our support.

I admire your passion and confidence, but losing two or three players a year almost feels like we are the AFLW Giants. A team constantly leaking talent and unable to generate chemistry in the best 22 for more than a season before we leak another few players and we have to start again. Its good that we have a successful footy program, but if it is so good, why can't we convince quality players we want to keep to stay at the club?

Thing is, with more clubs set to join next year from memory, more concessions and advantages will be given to the new clubs and I'll give you a sneaky guess which club they'll look at first. Ughhhhh just over it!

Really do hope Ash goes well though. She was one of my favs.

 

[jatz14]

Don't be so sure, especially in this very tough post-COVID environment that the much richer clubs (including future expansion teams Hawthorn and Essendon) won't use their much bigger sponsorship bases to poach your two best players.

I cannot see this happening. While expansion was occurring, there was a vacuum for a clubs best players to move into. However, now that its stabilised, the only time a club would need to chase a new top 2 player, is if they lose one to retirement, or someone much better comes along that they think they can get. But clubs need to be wary of being to mercenary. For a club to bring in 2 new poached marquee players, the have to give the players they have, the flick. Given that these players are given jobs, not easy to do. Not good for your team cohesion either. Now that the league has finally entered a bit of a settled phase, I expect movement of the top players will die right down.

Where the action will be, is the very good, but not marquee players, eg Hosking, McCarthy, Newman.

 

[Oliver G]

I admire your passion and confidence, but losing two or three players a year almost feels like we are the AFLW Giants. A team constantly leaking talent and unable to generate chemistry in the best 22 for more than a season before we leak another few players and we have to start again. Its good that we have a successful footy program, but if it is so good, why can't we convince quality players we want to keep to stay at the club?

Thing is, with more clubs set to join next year from memory, more concessions and advantages will be given to the new clubs and I'll give you a sneaky guess which club they'll look at first. Ughhhhh just over it!

Really do hope Ash goes well though. She was one of my favs.

I totally agree that we have been the "AFLW Giants" but I really do believe those days are over for us as with 14 clubs now in the competition we aren't going to be singled out as nearly as much with the ever growing playing list. In 2017/2018 there were a total of 276 players, while in 2019/2020 there were 416 and that's not including the players yet to debut.

One of the downsides of having a longstanding women's program is that we don't have as many jobs to offer players as opposed to the newer clubs as those positions have been filled since 2016 and even earlier.

I also believe one of the reasons that pretty much no AFLW club is able to generate a reasonably good best 22 chemistry is the fact the season is so short. If the season was a proper length it would help tremendously with chemistry and maybe help some of the non elite players to stick around as they could see that something was building.

As for expansion that is on hold for the moment and there certainly will be no new clubs for 2021 and more than likely none in 2022.

So we're looking at 2023 at the earliest for any of the final four clubs (and potentially Tasmania) to come in and jatz14 makes a good point above the competition is stabilizing (more and more with each season) and contracts can now be signed for two years and that again is likely to increase from next year and the talent pool is increasing each and every season which means newer clubs won't have to solely rely on players from other AFLW clubs.

The state competitions are at the forefront for the talent pool increasing and there are now well over 1,000 players in the state system with the SANFLW doing an excellent job as does the VFLW (although not this year) and the WAFLW and TSLW began last year which are also affiliated with the AFL. Of course the academies are also catching up so that when players hit draft age they have been in the AFLW system and aren't just taken from local footy.

Again you are right it does feel like "Ughhhhh just over it!" sometimes but I am confident that our days of being the AFLW Giants are over and that concessions for the final expansion teams (whenever that does happen) won't affect us as nearly as much as they did in 2019/2020 but until we have a full competition there will be days of where we just go "Ughhhhh".

 

[TBOW]

On a side note for those wondering why we would bother trading 3 for 2 the ever reliable Sarah Black provided a great explanation...

I had never really thought about the implications of trading in a state based draft setup. It presents some interesting situations that would need to be heavily policed by the league.

For Adelaide and GWS draft picks have no relevance. They will get all of the available local talent regardless of where they are picked.
This means that we could say to Adelaide - instead of a second round pick for Hannah Munyard (as predicted on AFL.com) how about you give us pick 4 and we give you Hannah and a large brown paper bag. Adelaide lose nothing and we end up with a really high draft pick.

Although to be fair if anyone is going to cheat this system it is going to be Carlton.

 

[CrowdedHouse]

Re: Getting moving from 3rd to 2nd in the draft.

Kinda as Sarah Black explained, it was to protect against what happened back in 2017.

After the first season you lost Lambert to Collingwood, because the Pies' Alicia Eva moved to GWS, and in return the Pies got the Giants No. 1 pick, leapfrogging you in the draft. You were forced to trade Lambert to the Pies to get the No 1 spot back (you were previously 3rd, but 1st in Vic), so you could draft Huntington.


Re: McCarthy to Eagles.

Might turn out to be a great win for Dogs. If the borders (here or in Ireland) remain closed, you just picked up some draft picks for a player, who may have been unable to play anyway!

 

[Fossie 32]

That's nice to know but as I said, McCarthy was the player I most enjoyed watching, partly for her flair and partly for the thrill of seeing an athletically gifted novice to the game develop into a star before our eyes. It was a similar thing with Conti before her.

We watch for the enjoyment and the emotional connection, not for the CD ratings.

I'll get over it but right now I'm really pissed off.

Why would she leave if it was so great being with us or is that just spin

Aisling McCarthy (@aish_mac) <a href="

 

[Glaeken Oracle]

Oliver Gigacz sorry for expressing an opinion! Losing Aisling McCarthy is the equivalent of losing someone like Vandermeer from the men's list. How many people would tolerate that? I was previously a AFLW WB member, as was my daughter. We attended the winning GF and many games before that. I could barely tolerate losing Kearney as I understood the circumstances, but the subsequent defections/poachings means we have attended 1 game since (even though we previously regularly made the 3 hour round-trip from regional Vic). That game in 2019 was also the last game I will attend, and I don't intend ever renewing my AFLW membership. We are also fairly involved in a local FNC, (both in the footy and netball), and am also a supporter of the women's team at another local club as ours doesn't have a women's/girl's team (although we have discussed it). Feel free to dislike this post as well, but I value the local women's competitions over AFLW for many reasons.

 

[BallaratBulldog]

I have sometimes felt it hard to feel attached when you keep losing main players each season

 

[AuTo00Z]

I totally agree that we have been the "AFLW Giants" but I really do believe those days are over for us as with 14 clubs now in the competition we aren't going to be singled out as nearly as much with the ever growing playing list. In 2017/2018 there were a total of 276 players, while in 2019/2020 there were 416 and that's not including the players yet to debut.

One of the downsides of having a longstanding women's program is that we don't have as many jobs to offer players as opposed to the newer clubs as those positions have been filled since 2016 and even earlier.

I also believe one of the reasons that pretty much no AFLW club is able to generate a reasonably good best 22 chemistry is the fact the season is so short. If the season was a proper length it would help tremendously with chemistry and maybe help some of the non elite players to stick around as they could see that something was building.

As for expansion that is on hold for the moment and there certainly will be no new clubs for 2021 and more than likely none in 2022.

So we're looking at 2023 at the earliest for any of the final four clubs (and potentially Tasmania) to come in and jatz14 makes a good point above the competition is stabilizing (more and more with each season) and contracts can now be signed for two years and that again is likely to increase from next year and the talent pool is increasing each and every season which means newer clubs won't have to solely rely on players from other AFLW clubs.

The state competitions are at the forefront for the talent pool increasing and there are now well over 1,000 players in the state system with the SANFLW doing an excellent job as does the VFLW (although not this year) and the WAFLW and TSLW began last year which are also affiliated with the AFL. Of course the academies are also catching up so that when players hit draft age they have been in the AFLW system and aren't just taken from local footy.

Again you are right it does feel like "Ughhhhh just over it!" sometimes but I am confident that our days of being the AFLW Giants are over and that concessions for the final expansion teams (whenever that does happen) won't affect us as nearly as much as they did in 2019/2020 but until we have a full competition there will be days of where we just go "Ughhhhh".

Look, we understand you're trying to be positive and put things in perspective, but losing one of your best players every year really sucks. Dogs have lost more best 21 players than any other team. People said it would stop after Conti left, and yet here we are, losing a player who finished 4th in the b&f. And these aren't expansion concessions, these are priority picks, and it could take years for the bottom teams to reach the standard (which by then, will probably be the time they add more expansion teams, and the cycle repeats itself). Also, I know they won the premiership a few years ago, but the team has basically been at the bottom of the ladder for past couple years (well, at least if you exclude the expansion teams). If the team is consistently finishing in the top half of the ladder, then fair enough, it's expected for players to be poached, but not when the team is struggling and rebuilding (due to being raided year after year). I can cop Kearney and Conti leaving, but McCarthy was basically the shining light that gave me hope the last couple years. Don't get me wrong, I fully expected existing clubs to suffer from expansion, but not one club to take most of the suffering. Even if you can argue it's not all that bad, as you can clearly see in previous posts, turn fans away.

Anyway, I'm not mad at McCarthy and do wish her the best (especially if covid affected her decision), it's just particularly upsetting given where she came from. The club gave her an opportunity (that most other teams wouldn't of) and developed her as good as you could hope in her time, so you would think she wouldn't leave (well, at least not this soon). What hurts the most is she was the team's best young player, and her best is still in front of her, and as usual, compensation is pathetic (with the exception of last year, when the AFL gave Richmond pick 1 to make sure they got Conti).

 

[Sharkey66]

Why would she leave if it was so great being with us or is that just spin

Aisling McCarthy (@aish_mac) <a href="

Understand what you are saying mate but i would much rather a response like hers compared to some others that left us in the past few seasons.

 

[Fossie 32]

Understand what you are saying mate but i would much rather a response like hers compared to some others that left us in the past few seasons.

Do you have any idea why she is leaving?

 

[dogwatch]

...

Re: McCarthy to Eagles.

Might turn out to be a great win for Dogs. If the borders (here or in Ireland) remain closed, you just picked up some draft picks for a player, who may have been unable to play anyway!

Yep, it's a long way to Tipperary.

 

[Sharkey66]

Do you have any idea why she is leaving?

Nope no idea, would assume real life opportunities as much as the cash. just happy she isn't bagging the club on the way out.

 

[Fossie 32]

Yep, it's a long way to Tipperary.

 

[TBOW]

Not sure why people are getting heated at Oliver Gigacz. This competition was always going to be a bit of a mess for the first few years as it was set up and while I understand people being disappointed at losing players we all need to accept that it was always going to happen.

The AFLW couldn't just tell all the new clubs that they had to be bad for a decade because they were late to the party - they need an even comp.

I think (Conti aside) that losing older players for quality 18 year olds will help set us up for a much longer period of success.

 

[Glaeken Oracle]

Not sure why people are getting heated at Oliver Gigacz. This competition was always going to be a bit of a mess for the first few years as it was set up and while I understand people being disappointed at losing players we all need to accept that it was always going to happen.

The AFLW couldn't just tell all the new clubs that they had to be bad for a decade because they were late to the party - they need an even comp.

I think (Conti aside) that losing older players for quality 18 year olds will help set us up for a much longer period of success.

Who's getting heated? He's posted some (what I believe to be) overly optimistic comments, while many other posters are highly pessimistic, and have pointed this out. Looks like a fairly robust discussion to me.

The issue here is that the Western Bulldogs AFLW list have lost significantly more high profile and top-tier players than every other club. So how does that fit with your "even comp" scenario?

 

[Prince Imperial]

Sorry to be pessimistic, but it's very hard to see that we will not be bottom four again next season with us probably even wooden spoon favourites. Why?

1. West Coast beat us last season and have strengthened their list with McCarthy whilst ours has weakened as a result of this;
2. Lowly Richmond are significantly strengthening their list with the acquisitions of Sarah Hocking, Sarah D'Arcy and Harriet Cordner;
3. Whilst we have good draft picks (2, 16 and 19), the lack of any football in Victoria this year means that this draft is far more of a lottery than usual and the players coming in have had their development significantly stunted;
4. The lack of any football in Victoria, will also substantially stunt the development of our large number of young players disproportionately.

 

[gordo2016]

Do you have any idea why she is leaving?

Her mother posted this on facebook to one of the Bulldog supporters:
Thanks Barry I want to thank you personally and the supporters on this page for the support you have given Aisling and our family since she joined the Bulldogs two years ago.
Bulldogs will always have a special place in Aisling’s heart and we will follow their progress with enthusiasm.
It’s a new adventure for Aisling moving to Perth and the Eagles but it was an opportunity she couldn’t turn down to further her football and physio career .
Bulldogs are an amazing bunch of girls and she has made friends for life in the club.
She is very sad to leave and is grateful to Western Bulldogs for giving her the opportunity to play footy and develop as a player.
This page has been Brilliant for us as a family in Ireland in keeping us up to date with the team news and matches .
Thanks for always being positive and supportive and encouraging Aisling in her development as a player.

 

[TBOW]

Who's getting heated? He's posted some (what I believe to be) overly optimistic comments, while many other posters are highly pessimistic, and have pointed this out. Looks like a fairly robust discussion to me.

The issue here is that the Western Bulldogs AFLW list have lost significantly more high profile and top-tier players than every other club. So how does that fit with your "even comp" scenario?

Honestly, I just think he is being pragmatic and getting a lot of venting in return.

All we can do now is enjoy the AFLW for what it is and hope that we are creating a strong program regardless of who is in it.

 

[Oliver G]

Who's getting heated? He's posted some (what I believe to be) overly optimistic comments, while many other posters are highly pessimistic, and have pointed this out. Looks like a fairly robust discussion to me.

The issue here is that the Western Bulldogs AFLW list have lost significantly more high profile and top-tier players than every other club. So how does that fit with your "even comp" scenario?

All good Glaeken Oracle I don't think it's that heated either. I am in the optimistic section but totally fine with anyone feeling the opposite and I certainly don't want to come across as trying to force people into supporting. I am just personally very passionate and very excited to see new side of Australia football grow.

I totally agree that we lost two generational players in Kearney and Conti but Brennan never really lived up to the expectation and Lambert only became an elite player in the past two seasons and in return we got a gem in Huntington.

 

[Glaeken Oracle]

All good Glaeken Oracle I don't think it's that heated either. I am in the optimistic section but totally fine with anyone feeling the opposite and I certainly don't want to come across as trying to force people into supporting. I am just personally very passionate and very excited to see new side of Australia football grow.

I totally agree that we lost two generational players in Kearney and Conti but Brennan never really lived up to the expectation and Lambert only became an elite player in the past two seasons and in return we got a gem in Huntington.

Thank you, I also am fine with your point of view. I just don't agree with it. The AFLW list also (and I note for various reasons) lost Birch to Dees, then Ernst, Bruton and O'Connor to expansion clubs. That's 6 premiership players plus Brennan.

 

[Oliver G]

Thank you, I also am fine with your point of view. I just don't agree with it. The AFLW list also (and I note for various reasons) lost Birch to Dees, then Ernst, Bruton and O'Connor to expansion clubs. That's 6 premiership players plus Brennan.

Oh yep forgot about those (sorry busy day), so from our Premiership team the following have gone...

Birch: Traded (Cited differences with the club) - Got Ash Guest, Gemma Lagioia (Pick 8)
Bruton: Expansion Signing
Callinan: Retired
Conti: Traded - Got Gabby Newton (Pick 1)
Ernst: Expansion Signing (would've stayed if not for a new job at QLD hospital)
O'Connor: Expansion Signing
Utri: Currently Pursuing Hockey Career
Wildes: Retired

Looking at the above you 100% correct we have been hit harder than any other club especially compared to the other premiership club Adelaide who are very fortunate that there is no other club in SA. Call me optimistic (which you already have ) I don't think we will be seeing this level of exodus again.

 

[Dogs_r_barking]

The AFLW is more unfair than AFL, and that is saying something.

The two clubs who had the courage to develop AFLW, gets punted from the opening round for Collingwood and Carlton, with Eddie talking up his imaginary rivalry with Carlton. When was the last time Collingwood and Carlton actually played off in a final series, and who under the age of 50 remembers any of their grand finals?

Then Norf’s aggressive poaching, the turncoats in Brennan and Conti going to Tiges, although karma got them last year. Now McCarthy, it would seem we have to throw a lot more money around to hang on to our players who are just not loyal. We went from pioneers to pillaged in a couple of years.

 

[Oliver G]

Welcome to the club Katie Lynch.

Hannah Munyard departs along with picks 19 and 25 in return for Lynch and Pick 11 (6 in VIC).

We now hold picks 2, 6 and 10 in the Victorian draft.

Lynch has played 7 games for Collingwood's AFLW team between 2019-2020 and kicked 1 goal, while also playing 14 games for Collingwood's VFLW teams kicking 5 goals.

Her efficiency is excellent at just under 80% and will be a nice addition to our midfield and forward line.

 

[SammoSammo]

Welcome Katie!

Glad to see someone actually traded into our team rather than just more draft picks.