Teen Wolf
Norm Smith Medallist
- Jul 5, 2011
- 8,111
- 8,915
- AFL Club
- North Melbourne
- Other Teams
- Afghanistan women's cricket team
Top 50 is nice and all (and I'm going to spend a lot more time focusing on that half of the list), but 100 paints a truer picture about each team's list imo.
The rankings here will be very much subjective gut-feel and hardly scientific, in fact I've deliberately avoided referring to all but a few stats in the player summaries I've written--you can look up numbers from plenty of other sources, and use them to tell whatever story you want.
Essentially, if I was starting up a team from scratch based on what I've seen at AFLW level, this is what my draft wishlist would look like. I should note plenty has happened (and will continue to) since the bulk of this was constructed. But I will keep things the same (such as including the preoccupied Ellie Brush, and excluding the revived Courtney Gum) as a reminder of how quickly they can change.
Here's the 100-51 group in one fell swoop:
Adelaide
53: Sarah Allan
68: Marijana Rajcic
73: Courtney Cramey
80: Chloe Scheer
95: Jess Foley
Brisbane
60: Sophie Conway
69: Breanna Koenen
99: Lauren Arnell
Carlton
51: Gabriella Pound
55: Nicola Stevens
75: Kerryn Harrington
78: Chloe Dalton
97: Alison Downie
100: Katie Loynes
C’wood
63: Sarah Dargan
86: Sarah D'Arcy
89: Steph Chiocci
Fremantle
58: Ashley Sharp
74: Evie Gooch
Geelong
70: Maddy McMahon
72: Meg McDonald
88: Melissa Hickey
90: Richelle Cranston
98: Phoebe McWilliams
Gold Coast
71: Sam Virgo
81: Jacqui Yorston
GWS Giants
67: Ellie Brush
87: Jacinda Barclay
94: Yvonne Bonner
96: Cora Staunton
Melbourne
52: Bianca Jakobsson
56: Libby Birch
62: Aliesha Newman
83: Eden Zanker
91: Lauren Pearce
Nth Melb.
57: Jasmine Grierson
66: Kaitlyn Ashmore
79: Ash Riddell
92: Kate Gillespie-Jones
Richmond
85: Christina Bernardi
St Kilda
61: Kate McCarthy
84: Courteney Munn
West Coast
65: Kellie Gibson
77: McKenzie Dowrick
93: Parris Laurie
W. Bulldogs
54: Hannah Scott
59: Brooke Lochland
64: Aisling Utri
76: Bonnie Toogood
82: Isabel Huntington
And now, 50-41. From this point on, the rankings will be accompanied with explanations, which may also clarify some of the earlier choices. Each summary will end with the use of football shorthand in the form of a Male Counterpart as another descriptive tool. This will perhaps offend some silly people for some silly reason, and my heart is truly broken over that prospect.
50: Ash Brazill (Coll) 30 years old and her continuity in the game isn’t as clear as the Diamonds at her doorstep. She can launch a big footy up the line, problem is it rarely crashlands to a teammate’s advantage after re-entering earth’s atmosphere. A fine aerial interceptor, which you’d expect from a first-and-foremost netball WD. But what about her surprisingly magnificent zig-zagging dash-and-carry game, she must’ve been a gridiron RB in a past life. Male Counterpart: Tyson Goldsack
49: Tegan Cunningham (Melb) On another team, one that isn’t a serious contender, this rusty AT-AT walker would be dead weight. For Melbourne, her ability to take a pack mark in front of goal with a game on the line might be the difference between a flag and another not-quite-good-enough season. A promising baby giraffe like Eden Zanker bodes well for the Demons’ future; right now, though, they just need an efficient converter with a career’s worth of experience in out-bodying opponents to take advantage of their all-star centre-square unit. Male Counterpart: Jesse Hogan
48: Emma Swanson (WC) Competent midfielder with dubious durability, the quietest prolific accumulator going. Male Counterpart: Drew Banfield
47: Jamie Stanton (GC) Cuts it on the inside with the best, while her kick-to-handball ratio ought to be inverted for somebody who can hack it like the worst. Male Counterpart: Andrew Swallow
46: Kirsty Lamb (WB) Not a lot of elite athleticism to speak of, and so her being the Bulldogs’ best player in 2019 was symptomatic of bigger problems. Her great strength is rightly based in knowing her limitations and crafting solutions to circumvent them. 46th out of 420 has her just missing out on the top 10%, meaning you won’t find a smarter B-grader. Male Counterpart: Brian Royal
45: Stevie-Lee Thompson (Adel) Consider Aliesha Newman or Sophie Abbatangelo for this year’s leading goal-kicker—players fitting the profile of under-the-radar crumbing forwards in high-performing teams. Therefore, why not consider Thompson too? She remains well down on the list of must-stop Crows because her sufficient skills and right-time-right-place discipline aren’t spectacular enough to worry about until it’s too late! Male Counterpart: Graham Johncock
44: Alyce Parker (GWS) She’s got what's required for hard-ball gets, fending off tacklers, booming handpasses and picking up an All-Australian nomination, but my guess is the Giants coaching staff think she needs more pre-season running sessions with Alicia Eva and less pats on the back from Kelli Underwood. Male Counterpart: Sam Mitchell
43: Emma King (NM) Lauren Pearce’s tidy foot skills and Breann Moody’s ground-level hustle are good for big girls, yet both fall short of true Extra Mobile Midfielder Ability. King, amazingly, doesn’t possess real E.M.M.A. either. Her recently unveiled key forward prowess, however, does provide North with a Functioning Legitimate Alternative Goalscoring avenue that can swing the outcome of games. Male Counterpart: Ben Brown
42: Tayla Harris (Carl) Probably a better boxer than footballer, definitely a better mark than kick despite what you may have heard. Harris is destined to take the defining Jesaulenkoesque speccy of the era over and over, as if to mockingly run rings around the is-she-worthy-of-the-hype hoopla. The price tag is she’ll also perennially be the clanging-the-post-from-5-metres-out type, and so be it—fellow long-bomber Malcolm Blight has done some mystifyingly stupid things from point blank range too. Male Counterpart: Matthew Richardson
41: Gemma Houghton (Frem) Not tall enough to play in the ruck, too athletically gifted to waste as a defensive forward, quite a bit more uncoordinated than you’d want from a reliable source of goals, lacks the instincts to have Genuine Extra Mobile Midfielder Ability… Well, the eye-catching against-the-tide performance Houghton delivered in the inaugural Round 7 Casey Fields Slaughter was recaptured throughout all of 2019, getting her nearer and nearer to proving any reasonable initial evaluation wrong. Male Counterpart: Michael Johnson
Currently putting some finishing touches on the next batch of 10.
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