Play Nice AFL Womens - General Discussion

[Teen Wolf]

Egan gets a lot of the ball but has very poor disposal, is a pretty poor defensive runner and gets caught ball watching if she can't get hands on it.

wouldn't be shocked if she doesn't take coaching and or development direction well and that's a part of being pushed out.

Consistent high performer in club B&Fs, voted by the coaches.

 

[Arwib]

My read with Egan is she wasn't explicitly delisted, she would've been told they don't intend to keep her and she should look for a trade, but for whatever reason the messaging from her manager to the press, or the reporter themselves, put a harsher spin on it. I would assume the Tigers are aiming to get more trade currency, especially with the Suns number 1 on the table for clubs who can muster the right multiple picks.

Nobody with trade value gets outright delisted this early in the offseason - I know she's not an absolute top liner but presumably there's trade value. if you're not going to be offered a contract you generally don't get outright delisted at this point, list lodgement is not until after trade period. So delistings don't happen unless it's a favour to a player like the Lions delisting Dev Robertson to help him move (and that was probably linked to [PLAYERCARD]Oscar Allen[/PLAYERCARD] contract/compo shenanigans anyway).

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Sounds like an enormous waste of time. Bookmakers set prices based on what punters think, and the punters have nfi like everybody else. Hence the increased number of upsets this year.

Cool. I trust that at least closing prices are accurate given I understand how this all works. If you think it's inaccurate and given you spend more time understanding the league than "punters", you yourself clearly should make large amounts of money gambling on the league.

I'm using it as an objective way to measure how competitive games are expected to be before they begin. Obviously, fans aren't going to literally be thinking "my team is a 80% chance of winning" or "my team is a 60% chance of winning". I'm including it because very few games have an element of uncertainty of who is going to win. Fans go to games because they have a reasonable belief that the game is going to be close, which provides entertainment if the result of the game is in the balance throughout its course. Then furthermore, if the teams are slightly more balanced, it makes the implications of wins and losses more severe, because if teams are closer to 5 win 5 loss parity, the difference one extra win/loss makes in terms of finals qualification throughout the whole 90 games is immense. The league essentially doesn't have this, which doesn't drive interest.

Anyway, to further my point:

The Predictability of Men’s AFL Crowds Revisited — Matter of Stats

This week the topic of what characteristics of a game of men’s AFL football might be correlated with its attendance was discussed on Twitter, which caused me to review this blog from 2015 where I looked at the same topic.

www.matterofstats.com

Next we quantify the raw effect of the expected competitiveness of the contest on attendances, which here we'll measure using MoSH2020's expected victory margin for the favourite, measured in points.
What we find is a clear relationship between attendances and the strength of the favourite, with games expected to be close attracting an additional 1,700 or so fans above average, and with games expected to be blowouts seeing crowds, on average, over 6,000 below the all-game average.
Variability of attendance is highest in games where the favourite is expected to win by 12 to 23 points, and is lowest in games where the favourite is expected to win by 48 points or more.

While fans clearly, according to this analysis, prefer contests that are expected to be close, we might also hypothesise that they’d rather see games more likely to effect the composition of the finals. To this end we next look at attendance figures grouping games on the basis of the ladder positions of the home and the away team going into the game.

And to pre-empt your argument obviously this is just a blog and not an academic article and you can control for more variables, but there is proof in the men's AFL about crowd attendances and what's at stake - you want a competitive game that has finals implications, though where the home team is favourite (obviously) but not so much of a favourite that there isn't uncertainty in the game, where their favouritism is not more extreme than a 60-70% chance to win.

For example, Fremantle's Round 9 win over Richmond had Fremantle as clear favourites, was not expected to be competitive but was played between two non-finals teams without finals implicatoins. A crowd of 2,400 at a perfect time of Sat evening could have been closer to 3,000 if the game had something at stake. Multiply that logic across all games is where I'm getting at - it's a disappointing crowd for the entertainment of a home win (which is better than home underdog but not as good as a expectation of a home narrow win) at a good time zone.

Any number of reasons? Didn't you hear. Phoebe Monahan, Grace Campbell, Courtney Wakefield, Harriet Cordner, Eilish Sheerin and now Grace Egan had to leave Richmond because the AFL forced them.

All were delisted, traded for practically nothing, or chose to retire despite being top players at the club. Just bad luck for the Tigers.

Certainly couldn't reel off similar lists for other clubs like the Gold Coast and Collingwood, who also rapidly fell down the ladder. In every case, it was entirely the AFL's fault. Do not blame the clubs for their mismanagement, whatever you do!

I made the point about focusing on the macro and yet you still highlight the micro. Obviously, there are going to be poorly run clubs, but the extent that you drop off and the ease in which players can leave contract structure wise and without having to give up much money for deciding to leave is an issue.

 

[Teen Wolf]

Cool. I trust that at least closing prices are accurate given I understand how this all works. If you think it's inaccurate and given you spend more time understanding the league than "punters", you yourself clearly should make large amounts of money gambling on the league.

I don't claim the league is highly predictable. That's your claim, which means you should be the one raking in money on the punt.

I made the point about focusing on the macro and yet you still highlight the micro. Obviously, there are going to be poorly run clubs, but the extent that you drop off and the ease in which players can leave contract structure wise and without having to give up much money for deciding to leave is an issue.

Losing a top player every year over several years because of issues with club management is not a micro issue.

It's the number one reason most lower-ladder teams are where they are. A couple years ago, 4% of players said they felt disrespected by their club. That figure is now at 10%.

Many of you would like to ignore this, and pretend the AFL can fix these cultural issues at clubs with some new list management and salary cap rules. Not gonna happen.

 

[branedotorg]

Consistent high performer in club B&Fs, voted by the coaches.

I watched her closely at Carlton and a few times at richmond. She is an OK AFLW level mid, well behind the new gen of post covid draftees.

Take a look at the richmond fans thread, they are more concerned with how it was done/commincated than the fact it was done.

Big rumours that she called out the coaches etc and this is at least part of why it was done so quickly.

 

[Eraser]

I watched her closely at Carlton and a few times at richmond. She is an OK AFLW level mid, well behind the new gen of post covid draftees.

Take a look at the richmond fans thread, they are more concerned with how it was done/commincated than the fact it was done.

Big rumours that she called out the coaches etc and this is at least part of why it was done so quickly.

This is because the Richmond board has a deranged collective grudge against her because of a TikTok she made two years ago, look at any other social media and you’ll see that people are rightfully outraged at this.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

Sean Lawson's figures (unsourced) showing a bounce back from last year's disastrous compressed fixture.

As we already know, Sydney is absolutely killing it. Carlton showing the impact of a club giving their supporters some hope.

But what is the story with the Eagles?

2025 AFLW crowd growth

A Flourish data visualization by Sean Lawson

public.flourish.studio

View attachment 2470530

Swans by and far out in front, done really well at engaging the community
Brisbane on the back of being competitive

The rest id like to see how the fixtures compare (e.g. hawks playing freo and gc in melbourne would have a pretty big hit youd think)

 

[threenewpadlocks]

I don't claim the league is highly predictable. That's your claim, which means you should be the one raking in money on the punt.


Losing a top player every year over several years because of issues with club management is not a micro issue.

It's the number one reason most lower-ladder teams are where they are. A couple years ago, 4% of players said they felt disrespected by their club. That figure is now at 10%.

Many of you would like to ignore this, and pretend the AFL can fix these cultural issues at clubs with some new list management and salary cap rules. Not gonna happen.

I'm not making money on the punt, because I'm not punting on the AFLW, because I take the odds as accurate representations of the probabilities of each team to win therefore would not beat the bookmakers margin. Therefore, I trust that the bookmakers' odds are a fair reflection of general fan sentiment on how likely your team is to win the game before the start of the game.

And you're missing my point with regards to player rules and poorly run teams. Of course, there are going to be cultural issues and players desiring to leave. But the list management rules make it far to easy for such occurrences to descend into rank uncompetitiveness, which benefits no-one. Melbourne have arguably been a poorly run team in the men's. Petracca for instnace has desired to leave the club for a year and a half since they put him on the field without a spleen. But because of the different contracting and list management rules, he wasn't able to leave immediately, and got Melbourne good draft picks. This balances the league's team by team competiveness.

The idea that teams forfeit draft picks etc, get compensation picks etc. and the salary cap system being more extreme to incentivise players to play for more money at crap teams even if the team is "mismanaged" etc. is not new. If the AFLW had more extreme rules upon expansion where expansion teams had to forfeit more draft picks or even hand over draft picks to clubs they recruited out of contract players for, that would have helped.

If there was greater flexibility for player pay to reflect actual ability, that would help. Currently the amount paid to the best 200 listed players, a top 10ish player on an average team, is not that much money than the amount you get by merely being a listed player full stop, given the tiered payment system. That incentivises players to leave a bad culture club for a good club without taking much (or any) of a pay cut. The AFL got around this by telling better players that they can earn promotional money, but this just exasperates the competitive problem that reinforces itself because well-run clubs can provide more paid opportunities outside of the salary cap, reflecting the club they pay for (so not arguably a pay cut at all). The AFL and AFLPA negotiated a minimum salary, there's a fair argument that while total player payments should have been identical the minimum should have been lower, which allows for player payment to reflect value more effectively league-wide and leads to competitive balance.

Obviously, players are still entitled to leave a bad culture club. But it should come at a greater financial cost to the player- closer to the men's league - if they do. Otherwise you have issues where bad clubs don't have the salary cap flexibility to entice players, and good clubs don't have the salary cap pressures that prevent them from recruiting players. ie, making a salary cap actually work in practice, not just in principle.

Whatever the interest is for the players, whatever the interest is for the clubs, they don't have a carte blanche freedom to dominate - that is why we have a draft in the first place (which is also unfair to players), because there's a balancing act for competitive balance, for the health of the league. Yes, poorly run clubs exist. We still aim to have equalisation and some lack of pure player freedom because it's to eventual benefit of everyone involved - my original post about a lack of games expected to be competitive - for there to be greater competitive balance.

 

[Jeremias]

How did she leave Carlton? I'm not privy to this

Let’s just say she handled herself…particularly poorly.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

Nothing says AFL/W competence like hosting your press event at Windy Hill when all vic games are at icon park

 

[Teen Wolf]

I'm not making money on the punt, because I'm not punting on the AFLW, because I take the odds as accurate representations of the probabilities of each team to win therefore would not beat the bookmakers margin. Therefore, I trust that the bookmakers' odds are a fair reflection of general fan sentiment on how likely your team is to win the game before the start of the game.

And now, because of an unprecedented % of big upsets, most people are catching on that the odds were overstating the predictability of the competition.

And you're missing my point with regards to player rules and poorly run teams. Of course, there are going to be cultural issues and players desiring to leave. But the list management rules make it far to easy for such occurrences to descend into rank uncompetitiveness, which benefits no-one. Melbourne have arguably been a poorly run team in the men's. Petracca for instnace has desired to leave the club for a year and a half since they put him on the field without a spleen. But because of the different contracting and list management rules, he wasn't able to leave immediately, and got Melbourne good draft picks. This balances the league's team by team competiveness.

The idea that teams forfeit draft picks etc, get compensation picks etc. and the salary cap system being more extreme to incentivise players to play for more money at crap teams even if the team is "mismanaged" etc. is not new. If the AFLW had more extreme rules upon expansion where expansion teams had to forfeit more draft picks or even hand over draft picks to clubs they recruited out of contract players for, that would have helped.

If there was greater flexibility for player pay to reflect actual ability, that would help. Currently the amount paid to the best 200 listed players, a top 10ish player on an average team, is not that much money than the amount you get by merely being a listed player full stop, given the tiered payment system. That incentivises players to leave a bad culture club for a good club without taking much (or any) of a pay cut. The AFL got around this by telling better players that they can earn promotional money, but this just exasperates the competitive problem that reinforces itself because well-run clubs can provide more paid opportunities outside of the salary cap, reflecting the club they pay for (so not arguably a pay cut at all). The AFL and AFLPA negotiated a minimum salary, there's a fair argument that while total player payments should have been identical the minimum should have been lower, which allows for player payment to reflect value more effectively league-wide and leads to competitive balance.

Obviously, players are still entitled to leave a bad culture club. But it should come at a greater financial cost to the player- closer to the men's league - if they do. Otherwise you have issues where bad clubs don't have the salary cap flexibility to entice players, and good clubs don't have the salary cap pressures that prevent them from recruiting players. ie, making a salary cap actually work in practice, not just in principle.

Whatever the interest is for the players, whatever the interest is for the clubs, they don't have a carte blanche freedom to dominate - that is why we have a draft in the first place (which is also unfair to players), because there's a balancing act for competitive balance, for the health of the league. Yes, poorly run clubs exist. We still aim to have equalisation and some lack of pure player freedom because it's to eventual benefit of everyone involved - my original post about a lack of games expected to be competitive - for there to be greater competitive balance.

Giving yourself away as somebody who doesn't have the slightest clue about current AFLW list management rules. How many Tier 2 players can a club have? How much less money does a Tier 4 player earn? What are Bri Davey's contract details at Collingwood vs Carlton?

Once you bother to actually learn about the intricacies, you'll realise your lecture was riddled with errors.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Giving yourself away as somebody who doesn't have the slightest clue about current AFLW list management rules. How many Tier 2 players can a club have? How much less money does a Tier 4 player earn? What are Bri Davey's contract details at Collingwood vs Carlton?

Once you bother to actually learn about the intricacies, you'll realise your lecture was riddled with errors.

The big change coming for AFLW's top earners in 2025

In another evolution of the AFLW competition, players' additional income from endorsement deals will be capped from 2025 onwards

www.afl.com.au

https://resources.afl.com.au/afl/document/2024/01/24/9c2526c2-fe93-4b84-b253-e9615831d56b/2023-2027-AFL-and-AFLW-CBA.pdf

Pray tell what wisdom you have that isn't easily inferred by both reputable news articles and the literal publishing of the CBA that defines how contracts have structured. What "intricacies" are there?

 

[Cdog71]

Let’s just say she handled herself…particularly poorly.

No, let’s hear it.
Two Carlton Mods running her down and pushing rumours.

Let’s hear it.

 

[Teen Wolf]

The big change coming for AFLW's top earners in 2025

In another evolution of the AFLW competition, players' additional income from endorsement deals will be capped from 2025 onwards

www.afl.com.au

https://resources.afl.com.au/afl/document/2024/01/24/9c2526c2-fe93-4b84-b253-e9615831d56b/2023-2027-AFL-and-AFLW-CBA.pdf

Pray tell what wisdom you have that isn't easily inferred by both reputable news articles and the literal publishing of the CBA that defines how contracts have structured. What "intricacies" are there?

Yes I posed three straightforward questions, and all the information needed to answer them correctly is easily accessible.

But you won't answer them correctly because you haven't taken the time to go through all the information first.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Yes I posed three straightforward questions, and all the information needed to answer them correctly is easily accessible.

But you won't answer them correctly because you haven't taken the time to go through all the information first.

Huh?

My logic is entirely based on the fact that the average payment for the 14 players that are not on minimum deals (at around 85k) is not that much significantly higher than the minimum amount that you earn, 67k,.

If increased the differences between tiers (or better still removed the tiers at all), ie a higher salary cap relative to the minimum contract, it is far more likely that the tier 1 players (2 per club) are the best 36 players in the league, the tier 2 players (6 per club) are the 37th to 108th best players, etc. Obviously never going to be perfect but it's clear that's its far more out of whack and we can point to the relatively flat payment structure of that.

 

[Teen Wolf]

Forming an opinion on the rules, and going on long rants about the rules, without learning what the rules actually are...

Staggering.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Forming an opinion on the rules, and going on long rants about the rules, without learning what the rules actually are...

Staggering.

I'll say this again: what makes you correct and the literal guiding, legal document of the collective bargaining incorrect? Instead of just saying "you're wrong, and your interpretation is wrong, and you don't know the rules".

It is entirely correct to state that there is very minimal difference among how much the players are paid, which doesn't incentivise staying at bad clubs for significantly more money. I think you're the only one disagreeing with that inference.

 

[Teen Wolf]

I'll say this again: what makes you correct and the literal guiding, legal document of the collective bargaining incorrect? Instead of just saying "you're wrong, and your interpretation is wrong, and you don't know the rules".

It is entirely correct to state that there is very minimal difference among how much the players are paid, which doesn't incentivise staying at bad clubs for significantly more money. I think you're the only one disagreeing with that inference.

It's not a matter of the CBA being in/correct, nor is it a matter of interpretation.

The issue isn't even that you haven't read the CBA, and therefore don't know crucial list management rules.

The issue is, despite failing to read the relevant rules as laid out in the CBA and failing to find out more about contract details, you've already made up your mind.

Until you correctly answer the three questions, I will know this is the case and therefore recognise your predetermined rants on the topic aren't valid.

 

[mookieb]

If a player leaves a club you can't just say this is due to poor club culture. Player movement in the AFLW has been far higher than AFL and players seem to have little loyalty and clubs very successfully poaching high level players.

From memory I read that the tier system of rating players had lead to more players leaving under the scenario clubs would state that they rate the player as tier 2 whereas their existing club is paying them under tier 3. Sure to be a lot of jealousy with players eyeing off players in the tier above them thinking that they're a better player and getting frustrated.

As for the predictability of games - it certainly has become more unpredictable but let's face it 1 in every 9 games played is guaranteed to see a NM win by 30+ points. Also while AFL teams can flip previous results often (see Geel vs Bris finals) I can't see this in AFLW. What levers are WC going to pull to reverse the result against Carl. What options do the Hawks have to reverse their fortunes against NM?

 

[Cdog71]

Any number of reasons? Didn't you hear. Phoebe Monahan, Grace Campbell, Courtney Wakefield, Harriet Cordner, Eilish Sheerin and now Grace Egan had to leave Richmond because the AFL forced them.

All were delisted, traded for practically nothing, or chose to retire despite being top players at the club.

You sure you want that go down this road with me?


Richmond needs to be better at thinking prospectively at how the game is growing

 

[EDFL follower]

Wouldn’t this sport get much more interest if it was played in footy season?
Surely playing games before the mens games would get more people following them and the opportunity for the girls to play in front of large crowds. Once the AFL grand final is played I turn to cricket as I’m sure many others do.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

Wouldn’t this sport get much more interest if it was played in footy season?
Surely playing games before the mens games would get more people following them and the opportunity for the girls to play in front of large crowds. Once the AFL grand final is played I turn to cricket as I’m sure many others do.

Curtain raisers dont work.
They have not worked in any sport. NRL literally has 0 attendance for nrlw curtain raisers during the season, soccer has almost noone. Even the odd cricket double-header sees attendance at less than 10% of the mens game.
Atmosphere disappears completely also.

 

[X_box_X]

I'm not making money on the punt, because I'm not punting on the AFLW, because I take the odds as accurate representations of the probabilities of each team to win therefore would not beat the bookmakers margin. Therefore, I trust that the bookmakers' odds are a fair reflection of general fan sentiment on how likely your team is to win the game before the start of the game.

Books are sharper this year than previous years, but they're still very beatable in AFLW. Often you have to shop early to avoid the rush but you'll find my lines are sometimes slightly distanced from the closing lines also.

Do you recall how laughable some of their opening lines were in previous seasons, including last season?

What you have to realise is books don't have individual traders with differing opinions. They're like sheep. They'll wait for Bet365 or Sportsbet to be first to release lines and the rest will follow. This means you're putting trust in one trader (previously this used to be Audrey the work experience kid at Sportsbet) to set opening lines and you're believing that to be accurate?

Here's my advice if you're looking to make money.

Set your own lines each Sunday night. When they're released (usually late Monday morning), use your lines to compare to the opening lines to identify value. Shop early, though, because if you're too late to act, the early value will disappear as the weak opening lines move closer towards your lines. You then have the choice prior to the opening bounce to ride your +EV plays, which is a profitable option long term, or cover your bet with an arb or middle.

 

[X_box_X]

Wouldn’t this sport get much more interest if it was played in footy season?
Surely playing games before the mens games would get more people following them and the opportunity for the girls to play in front of large crowds. Once the AFL grand final is played I turn to cricket as I’m sure many others do.

Personally, that is too much of a log jam for me. I enjoy the separation.

Too much footy would be crunched in. It's already hard enough to follow the AFL, VFL and local footy which are run simultaneously. I'd watch very little AFLW if it was competing against the above three.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

Books are sharper this year than previous years, but they're still very beatable in AFLW. Often you have to shop early to avoid the rush but you'll find my lines are sometimes slightly distanced from the closing lines also.

Do you recall how laughable some of their opening lines were in previous seasons, including last season?

What you have to realise is books don't have individual traders with differing opinions. They're like sheep. They'll wait for Bet365 or Sportsbet to be first to release lines and the rest will follow. This means you're putting trust in one trader (previously this used to be Audrey the work experience kid at Sportsbet) to set opening lines and you're believing that to be accurate?

Here's my advice if you're looking to make money.

Set your own lines each Sunday night. When they're released (usually late Monday morning), use your lines to compare to the opening lines to identify value. Shop early, though, because if you're too late to act, the early value will disappear as the weak opening lines move closer towards your lines. You then have the choice prior to the opening bounce to ride your +EV plays, which is a profitable option long term, or cover your bet with an arb or middle.

Sure, but the point I was making wasn't so much the extent of their accuracy but rather how I'm using it as an objective measure of sentiment and expectation for uncompetitive games before they begin, where there's no real expected entertainment before a match begins derived from genuine uncertainty over who will win, which is obviously far greater in women's then men's