The Quality Of AFL Athleticism Compared To Other Sports?

[Vindicater]

Fitness and athleticism are two completely different things

Yes.

But endurance (which I think people are getting confused for fitness) is an athletic trait.

 

[Stefan_Carey]

African americans are completely different than africans...africans tend to have be very tall and very lean...whereas alot of african americans tend to to have higher muscle density....

Its almost as if one group has the opportunity at a high standard of life...while the other doesn't...I'd assume that African Americans share DNA with Africans...but that's just plain thinking...
...
..
.

Your use of ellipses is almost as misguided as your racism

 

[Goggin Our Best]

How do we compare?


Australia 's Greatest Athlete!

Billy Slater won twice.
AFL athletes were mediocre, but they didn't select the best AFL specimen.

Cant argue about Slater - he is the best by a mile

When Ablett Jnr was right at his peak for Geel - the Melb Storm came down one night to Geelongs training - and they paired up Slater against Ablett

And in the words of Mark Thompson - it was a total no contest - Slater did him for pace agility the lot

Maybe sensitive Gaz didnt like Bombers honest appraisal of the match up - might have sown the seeds of their rift - hey

 

[mick500]

The Epl skill wise is far superior imo. I use to be a round ball hater.

But you watch the best teams and they don't make mistakes. Ever. The other team has to win the ball back off them. In afl home and away teams are constantly turning it over. When finals are played I notice a lot less direct turnovers and when they do happen they are punished.

We are beginning to reach a level that could be considered "professional".

That's why hawthorn were so successful, they didn't turn the ball over. They hit targets. Whether that was a 20 meter chip kick or a quick play on handball, they hit targets .

Skill wise there's a lot less mistakes in the Epl.

Round ball vs our ball plays a part, but it doesn't change the fact there's less mistakes in the epl and can be seen as more aesthetically pleasing than a bunch of 8 guys scrummaging for the ball.

Our game has taken a turn more like rugby in recent years which is not a good thing. Bulldogs and Richmond winning and us playing in a GF might help change that trend of ugly footy.

 

[RUNVS]

The Epl skill wise is far superior imo. I use to be a round ball hater.

But you watch the best teams and they don't make mistakes. Ever. The other team has to win the ball back off them. In afl home and away teams are constantly turning it over. When finals are played I notice a lot less direct turnovers and when they do happen they are punished.

We are beginning to reach a level that could be considered "professional".

That's why hawthorn were so successful, they didn't turn the ball over. They hit targets. Whether that was a 20 meter chip kick or a quick play on handball, they hit targets .

Skill wise there's a lot less mistakes in the Epl.

Round ball vs our ball plays a part, but it doesn't change the fact there's less mistakes in the epl and can be seen as more aesthetically pleasing than a bunch of 8 guys scrummaging for the ball.

Our game has taken a turn more like rugby in recent years which is not a good thing. Bulldogs and Richmond winning and us playing in a GF might help change that trend of ugly footy.

Hawthorn of the 2013 to 2015 period were so good at hitting targets I am even surprised that these days teams are drafting players at all with questionable kicks. To me, if a player has a questionable kick, no matter if he is brilliant at everything else, you can almost put a line through his name. The only exception is maybe an inside midfielder as at least the ball is going forward into a dangerous position when they kick it.

Still, the Hawthorn team showed that you can have a slow team, but if you have a team filled with 22 players who are good kicks then you are going to win a lot of games.

Honestly, I would rather have 22 George Hewett's in the Swans side than 22 Dan Hannebery's.

 

[NoobPie]

Hawthorn of the 2013 to 2015 period were so good at hitting targets I am even surprised that these days teams are drafting players at all with questionable kicks. To me, if a player has a questionable kick, no matter if he is brilliant at everything else, you can almost put a line through his name. The only exception is maybe an inside midfielder as at least the ball is going forward into a dangerous position when they kick it.

Still, the Hawthorn team showed that you can have a slow team, but if you have a team filled with 22 players who are good kicks then you are going to win a lot of games.

Honestly, I would rather have 22 George Hewett's in the Swans side than 22 Dan Hannebery's.

I don't think hawthorn just showed that. They also had a lot of a grade footballers with far more broad set of talents than just foot skills. They also showed that the chip-catch-stop-repeat game style is imho the worst to watch of the range of successful styles that have had periods of dominance over the last decade.

Thevcomparison to the top end of European soccer is silly. The top 20 clubs in Europe have a collective roster of about 500 drawn from the best athletic and sporting talent from 3 continents. The afl has over 800, 80% of which are drawn from half a country of 20 million. The game itself requires a significantly broader skill set than soccer a far more complex game awareness

It is surely more important for a professional sport to be dynamic and entertaining than pretty

Also, if a team of Dan Hannebery's played a team of George hewetts, the latter team would barely get their hands on the ball

 

[John Who]

Haven't really read through all the pages thus far, but some of my thoughts:
- Athleticism is a mixture of speed, endurance, agility and strength.
- AFL is definitely one of the most athletic sports in the world due to players having to use essentially all their limbs (handballing, kicking, tapping, tackling and running); often most AFL players are trained to use both hands and legs to dispose of the ball, so it is one of the most ambidextrous sports known.
- You can't compare an AFL player to another athlete from other sports, because certain athletes are picked on certain attributes, whereas AFL players on average are picked for all-round attributes.
- Athleticism is important in AFL, but just as important is the ability to dispose of the ball efficiently.

 

[Sub_Zero]

Haven't really read through all the pages thus far, but some of my thoughts:
- Athleticism is a mixture of speed, endurance, agility and strength.
- AFL is definitely one of the most athletic sports in the world due to players having to use essentially all their limbs (handballing, kicking, tapping, tackling and running); often most AFL players are trained to use both hands and legs to dispose of the ball, so it is one of the most ambidextrous sports known.
- You can't compare an AFL player to another athlete from other sports, because certain athletes are picked on certain attributes, whereas AFL players on average are picked for all-round attributes.
- Athleticism is important in AFL, but just as important is the ability to dispose of the ball efficiently.

Which alot of players fail at

 

[ItsAllAboutMe]

Cant argue about Slater - he is the best by a mile

When Ablett Jnr was right at his peak for Geel - the Melb Storm came down one night to Geelongs training - and they paired up Slater against Ablett

And in the words of Mark Thompson - it was a total no contest - Slater did him for pace agility the lot

Maybe sensitive Gaz didnt like Bombers honest appraisal of the match up - might have sown the seeds of their rift - hey

Ben Cousins at his peak would have been interesting

 

[J_Moore]

the game has taken a turn more like rugby in recent years which is not a good thing. Bulldogs and Richmond winning... might help change that trend of ugly footy.

lol wut

 

[mick500]

lol wut

Good point. Kids aye.

 

[Resigned]

Ben Cousins at his peak would have been interesting

Please elaborate he's probably on a kind of peak right now.

 

[J_Moore]

Good point. Kids aye.

The Bulldogs and (particularly) Richmond played deliberately ugly footy. It was all about putting enormous pressure around the contest and just forcing the ball forward.

Tigers ranked 17th for marks per game this season.
15th for disposals
18th for disposal efficiency.
3rd for turnovers
1st for clangers (these last two take some doing when you're 15th for disposals)

7th for tackles.
1st for tackles inside 50.

It wasn't a beautifully precise, structured gameplan. It was as ugly as it comes - a 100% pressure based game. And it beat the 'beautiful' teams - GWS and the Crows.

How someone can look at the Tigers victory this year and see it as a blow against ugly footy, I don't really understand.

 

[ApplecrossWC]

AFL players aren't that athletic. They sook about playing the current amount of games which results in a compromised fixture. Look how many games premier league players are involved in especially if they are involved in European competitions or the international team.

AFL players are a bunch of overpaid prima donnas

 

[Dr Tigris]

The Bulldogs and (particularly) Richmond played deliberately ugly footy. It was all about putting enormous pressure around the contest and just forcing the ball forward.

Tigers ranked 17th for marks per game this season.
15th for disposals
18th for disposal efficiency.
3rd for turnovers
1st for clangers (these last two take some doing when you're 15th for disposals)

7th for tackles.
1st for tackles inside 50.

It wasn't a beautifully precise, structured gameplan. It was as ugly as it comes - a 100% pressure based game. And it beat the 'beautiful' teams - GWS and the Crows.

How someone can look at the Tigers victory this year and see it as a blow against ugly footy, I don't really understand.

I know I support them, but it wasn't ugly. Enormous pressure, but constant action. And when the tigers got it they attacked all out.

Ugly is constant scrums and little ball movement. Plenty of ball movement with the tigers and Dogs. Just they combine attack with defense.

 

[Dr Tigris]

AFL players aren't that athletic. They sook about playing the current amount of games which results in a compromised fixture. Look how many games premier league players are involved in especially if they are involved in European competitions or the international team.

AFL players are a bunch of overpaid prima donnas

Do you suppost an AFL team? Or the game?

AFL has an unusual trait of combining the need to outright speed, with endurance, with full contact, with the need to height and mobility in tight spaces. It probably requires more variety in athletic abilities than any other sport. Premier league players don't get hit anywhere near as hard as AFL players. Very tall or short players have to be very good to survive. Pure physical strength, beyond a point, is useless. Prima donnas? Don't reckon at all.

 

[J_Moore]

I know I support them, but it wasn't ugly. Enormous pressure, but constant action. And when the tigers got it they attacked all out.

Ugly is constant scrums and little ball movement. Plenty of ball movement with the tigers and Dogs. Just they combine attack with defense.

I'd say hacked kicks to 50/50 contests and the ball constantly spilling out on ground under no actual control qualifies as pretty ugly, too.

I don't care how it looked, fwiw. It's not a value judgement. The point of the game is to win. Bugger being pretty, and good on the Tigers. It's not synchronised swimming.

But yeah, it was a very ugly game style. Scrappy as s**t, ordinary skills, and a bit of a mess aside from the last kick inside 50 to the small forward (which was very, very efficient). If an interstate side had produced it, it would've been talked about a lot more.

 

[Matera92]

I think alot has to do with the sports that is played in the environment growing up. With our location and climate, the fitness and strength is there, but with swimming, football, rugby, tennis, cricket, hockey etc the vertical leap is something that is not overly trained for.

Even in the NBA, they have a natural progression from having monster centres from the mid 90s to 2000s ( likes of Bradley, Ming, Muresean are up to 7'7" or strength types like Shaq etc) to mobile centres with all round speed and athleticism being able to space the floor. Naturally the smaller positions like point guards and shooting guards are getting larger too where a 6 and a half footer moves as explosive. LeBron James played alot of football in school which probably contributes to his strength too

I think Geelong made a good gamble with Blicavs and in all honesty i think the Nba getting more exposure recently it will see vertical leaps increase as more kids play it as their 2nd or third/ summer sport.

The type of NBA centre has changed due to rule changes rather than athletic developments.

 

[Dr Tigris]

I'd say hacked kicks to 50/50 contests and the ball constantly spilling out on ground under no actual control qualifies as pretty ugly, too.

I don't care how it looked, fwiw. It's not a value judgement. The point of the game is to win. Bugger being pretty, and good on the Tigers. It's not synchronised swimming.

But yeah, it was a very ugly game style. Scrappy as s**t, ordinary skills, and a bit of a mess aside from the last kick inside 50 to the small forward (which was very, very efficient). If an interstate side had produced it, it would've been talked about a lot more.

I see what you mean. But smooth fast uninterrupted ball movement is (to me) only attractive here and there. If it is constant it means that the teams aren't trying to win. The contests are gone and the physical side that I find exciting is lost. It's just a training drill.

just my opinion. But, the alternative to the contested style is also fairly unexciting. I guess you want the in between, contest then freeish movement.

Any beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[Aeglos]

Ben Cousins at his peak would have been interesting

Eh, not super big, quick, agile or strong.
Bit like Nigel Lappin his biggest weapon was his work rate.

 

[mick500]

I And when the tigers got it they attacked all out.

Ugly is constant scrums and little ball movement. Plenty of ball movement with the tigers and Dogs. Just they combine attack with defense.

This.

All teams being discussed, us Richmond and bulldogs play risky football. They break and the break hard from stoppages if they look like winning it. The pressure to hit targets, knowing turnovers will be costly leads to a higher level imo.

With those stat's you might have a point tho, maybe they do play a bit uglier than us, certainly wasn't ugly for them on GF day.

Reagrdless my point was that when the AFL reaches a point where mistakes aren't made and turnovers are for the most part forced turnovers rather than just poor skills then we can start talking about them being as skilled as Epl players.

Like I said when finals starts these days I have noticed mistakes are punished much more heavily, and you only need a weak link or 2 to be exposed which is a good thing for the game.

But in home and away there's mistakes everywhere. A lot of low quality matches with poor skills.