Game Day AFLW Round 9, 2025: West Coast vs Adelaide

[Ilkka Sinisalo]

Started to look really flat early in the last quarter, Crom went from one end to inside 50 way too easily, then Lewis had that chase-down tackle on Marinoff and since then the girls have really lifted and played well. Great leadership and hustle.

 

[HoneyBadger35]

Bella, Cleaver did their level best. An almost game for Riggs. Rentsch had her moments, again so much falls on Roberts against these properly good sides and they are usually too well drilled to let her go about it without a tag.

The soft underbelly of the list has been touched on, Swanny poor today, but I also think the midfield bath started with a strangely non competitive ruck battle. Very little physicality from Lakay. Poor day the office for the Wakfers early, grew into it ultra late.

Adelaide are good and this would have been our best ever win if we’d rolled into town and delivered it, and we also managed to cook some of the easiest changes you could ever hope to create. But the gulf in class is evident.

Get back home, rest up, hit this Geelong/Sydney/Carlton stretch hard and make the finals girls.

 

[Luuuc]

We may have completely squandered 3 quarters of that game in very frustrating fashion, but we did it in a shit hot pride guernsey, in elite fashion.

 

[Ilkka Sinisalo]

Bella, Cleaver did their level best. An almost game for Riggs. Rentsch had her moments, again so much falls on Roberts against these properly good sides and they are usually too well drilled to let her go about it without a tag.

The soft underbelly of the list has been touched on, Swanny poor today, but I also think the midfield bath started with a strangely non competitive ruck battle. Very little physicality from Lakay. Poor day the office for the Wakfers early, grew into it ultra late.

Adelaide are good and this would have been our best ever win if we’d rolled into town and delivered it, and we also managed to cook some of the easiest changes you could ever hope to create. But the gulf in class is evident.

Get back home, rest up, hit this Geelong/Sydney/Carlton stretch hard and make the finals girls.

Allan is way more athletic than Lakay and it showed. Lakay looked slow and lumbering, really wasn’t competitive at all in the ruck.

Disappointing that they were well and truly out of it by midway through the third quarter but at least they pulled a few goals back late to minimise the damage to percentage and hopefully walk away from this one with not too bad a taste in their mouth.

 

[Seadog]

Good last qtr. Girls stuck at it.
Cleaver was a rock, just need to tidy up her kicking

 

[Rids]

Frustrating game - Crows are a good team but was almost as if we paid them too much respect. Not sure how to explain some of the dropped marks (at both ends) that cost goals - almost as if they expected pressure that wasn’t there. Don’t think this side knows how good they could be yet - but played so well with the shackles off and proud of the last quarter (which could be very handy if finals comes down to %).

Epic game from Cleaver (save for same dodgy kicks) - 14 intercept possessions is just elite. Expected a little more from our experienced players. Drennan and Hooker had no influence and Swanson tried hard and finished the game well but had some moments she’d like to forget.

Good learning experience - huge game against the Cats next week.

 

[CoastersFlag No.5]

Good last quarter first 3 quarters were average.

 

[Ochre]

Thought the backs were outstanding defensively today. Only conceded 7 goals despite being smashed in i50s and clearances.

Still a mile to go but we lose that game by 70 not 17 in previous years.

 

[Livin1989]

Britton, Western, Bushby being a core part of our width and fast ball movement needs serious addressing through the draft.

My thoughts exactly, all 3 consistently miss handball targets and fumble don't know how optimistic i am that will change with training. I live in hope cos all 3 are great athletes and get themselves into great positions

 

[Avalor]

Handballing is a weakness for most of the girls, unfortunately. They should be working on that hard in the off season. Does it come down to arm strength?

 

[HoneyBadger35]

Handballing is a weakness for most of the girls, unfortunately. They should be working on that hard in the off season. Does it come down to arm strength?

Only a guess, but looking at the difference between the genuine guns of the comp and the next tiers down, I think it’s a matter of doing things on the fly.

What I mean is you see girls really struggle to kick without their feet set just right, taking a few extra shuffle steps to get organised before kicking it. Oftentimes these are players with pretty reliable kicks off the mark.

Easy to handball in drills, more difficult to handball off platform or with your body twisted in a slightly different way than you train in.

As I say just a guess but I think it’s something that dies out as more lifelong footballers come through who have had more game experience and don’t need to think about where their feet are or the getting set just right.

 

[JADED]

Cleaver very good today. I was surprised she's only 20 still (even though last year was her first year) There's a lot to like about her composure increase. Seemed to position herself very well. Just gotta look for small moments of improvement and we're getting that.

Drennan & Hooker looked past it. Their experience doesn't show up as any kind of onfield wisdom. Dana no doubt working back into it after maternity leave but age for both won't be helping.

Lucia quite low time on ground today. Was always getting benched. Didn't seem like she needed the rest as she was always sprinting off super fast.

If we could've come out a bit more settled for the first 3 quarters, different story. Looked miles off it, and so many turnover kicks.

Good turnout of WCE fans at the ground I thought. Riggsy probably bringing a fair chunk of that.

Another game down for this little eagle.

 

[RookiePick]

Just let it get too far away from us.

Great fight and grit to wheel it back into something more respectable.

 

[Seadog]

Only a guess, but looking at the difference between the genuine guns of the comp and the next tiers down, I think it’s a matter of doing things on the fly.

What I mean is you see girls really struggle to kick without their feet set just right, taking a few extra shuffle steps to get organised before kicking it. Oftentimes these are players with pretty reliable kicks off the mark.

Easy to handball in drills, more difficult to handball off platform or with your body twisted in a slightly different way than you train in.

As I say just a guess but I think it’s something that dies out as more lifelong footballers come through who have had more game experience and don’t need to think about where their feet are or the getting set just right.

A lot of the girls have the ball too far away from their body and just try and punch it off their hand, it ends up flopping a few metres. Have to bring the ball back towards you when punching it.
Physics innit.

 

[Yeahnahmate]

There was effort there but Adelaide came out with genuine intent. The competition are on notice that our young side need to be outworked or can prove dangerous. Credit to them though for coming out at 100.

That said the Crows looked much cleaner around the contest and there was a class differential in both that - and us ultimately chasing tail due to their subsequent running power post clearance.

Cleaver eye catching even when the heat is on with fantastic positioning and bodywork when we were under siege. Can take young talls a fair while at the best of times to develop competitiveness on those fronts, and she won’t always beat that level but very impressive yesterday.

I do note that for the most part when down this season we’ve had quite a decent contingent of fighters that scrap and don’t like to give up. The culture of the side looks great this year under Daisy.

The late game push when so far behind is often hard to read as we were definitely outclassed when it was on but still a small consolation for keeping the effort up despite a probable small drop off in intensity from Adelaide.

I think some of the older stalwarts like Swanny & Drenno as good as they’ve been for us need to be replaced by a couple of tough mid-age players to prop up the list and increase our sustained physicality around the ball. The effort is there but clearance still an area that needs the ceiling lifted on. Painter will take time but I think will be great in there as she grows into it. Her balance and body strength already above average but still raw in terms of experience.

Massive month of footy incoming with our opponents all close to us on the ladder, each fixture so huge on our finals hopes. Really excited for us to clinch a spot and give some cheek. Carn Eagles