Play Nice AFL Womens - General Discussion

[Teen Wolf]

The game and skills will gradually improve however there is an elephant in the room that will need to be addressed at some point.

The ground dimensions, equipment and current rules all revolve around men whom run faster and kick longer. A possible 3 kicks from one end of the ground to the other simply cannot be achieved in the female version.
That means more kicks, handballs and possessions are required to cover the equivalent distances for men. More possessions means more opportunities for error and turnovers, for each attacking movement. Whatever distances or pathways may be covered heading to goal in 4 or 5 possessions by the men will take an extra number of possessions for the females to replicate. Now we may eventually find the womens game utilising different styles and plans to try and lessen all those extra possessions required to cover equivalent distances, but the realities remain. They are playing on grounds marked for men and will never cover the same distances with kicks and handballs or achieve the same speeds (bar the odd exception). That is reality.

At some point ground dimensions or different line markings may be considered as well as equipment and rules. In women's Gaelic football there are a few rule variations, shorter game times and a smaller ball is used compared to the men which aids skill levels. I expect we will see similar variations in our game for the women eventually.

Smaller footballs are already used at AFLW level, even by women's standards.

Other variations like shorter game time, less players on the field and the last possession oob rule are also in place.

Stats suggest bigger grounds are more likely to produce higher scores.

 

[wayToGo_]

At some point ground dimensions or different line markings may be considered as well as equipment and rules. In women's Gaelic football there are a few rule variations, shorter game times and a smaller ball is used compared to the men which aids skill levels. I expect we will see similar variations in our game for the women eventually.

The ball is already smaller. They use a size 4 (versus a size 5 used in the men's). They play 16 on the field instead of 18 to reduce congestion. Making the grounds smaller would only counteract that and as others have shown scoring is higher on bigger grounds. They have 5 interchange players (instead of 4) and have uncapped rotations. They only play 15 minute quarters. It works out to the equivalent of playing 3 quarters of a men's game.

So Freo's score of 60 on the weekend, extrapolated to 80 (an extra quarter) is the same as the men's average score in AFL in 2019. Obviously that's not an average score for the women but it does show the scoring can be in the ball park by the better teams already. Would love to see some data but I think the kicking distances are getting longer each year as well.

The only thing AFLW needs is time. The skill levels have improved noticeably in 4 years. Slightly diluted overall by the introduction of new teams but the pool of talent coming through juniors is also increasing exponentially and will easily offset that in time. Seasoned bodies still dominate the bests but the volume of 1st and 2nd year players impacting games early in their careers is increasing each year.

In a few years time the vast majority of players will have played football since childhood. There is plenty of talent on the horizon.

Obviously you aren't going to get athletic profiles (eg endurance) like you have in the men's unless you have full time professional athletes.

One of the questions swirling in my head is if AFL is too athletic-based these days? I see a bunch of players on every club's AFL list that are athletic but not that skilful (eg can't kick).

Can the AFLW get a better balance where talent rules supreme over athleticism? Could we eventually see a product that is arguably more entertaining not because how quickly or far someone runs but because it is a battle of two teams of ~20 players skills pitted against each other? I'm not sure how to achieve it but I think there is an opportunity.

 

[juss]

of course there is a better way to say it

with media training and sterilisation of the answer

laud the sports player speaking honestly she thinks taylah is a one trick pony and called her out on it - good on her

enough if this respect/love/hippy s**t - have a crack

went to the derby yesterday and whilst the spectacle was average (it’ll get there) - as soon as the game started o wanted our girls to belt Christ out of Freo (physically and the scoreboard - though the opposite occurred)

Meh, I'm a fan of humility especially when it's coming from a no name. Especially when in the sport the lack of skills does half your job for the defenders. Also when your own skillset is extremely limited. Next Harris kicked a goal, so she kept her to her average, wow....

Meh what goes around comes around and I hope Livingstone likes the extra attention on her performance. If you're gonna talk the talk and criticise others you better be able to back it up for more than a game.

 

[FRUMPY]

Pretty funny comment by that Collingwood girl Livingstone about Tayla Harris "If you stop her in the air shes useless"

Wish some of the blokes were this honest.



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Yeah loved it, but as expected the complainers come. Hence why men dont say what they think - you get taken down for it.

 

[Reality IS]

Great comment re Harris.

It seems that the AFLW is about marketing and SJW moments rather than if you can actually produce/play the game. Harris/Mo Hope etc get media coverage but if you watch the games aren't actually stars of the league!

Harris isn't very good but has a statue, surely it gets shuffled off somewhere soon as its a joke

 

[Underarm]

Meh, I'm a fan of humility especially when it's coming from a no name. Especially when in the sport the lack of skills does half your job for the defenders. Also when your own skillset is extremely limited. Next Harris kicked a goal, so she kept her to her average, wow....

Meh what goes around comes around and I hope Livingstone likes the extra attention on her performance. If you're gonna talk the talk and criticise others you better be able to back it up for more than a game.

She's only a 'no name' because she's a defender.

It doesn't help when the quote is being taken out of context every where.

 

[Biggie]

Harris isn't very good but has a statue, surely it gets shuffled off somewhere soon as its a joke

Tayla Harris, the player, isn’t what the statue stands for.

 

[NorthernBastard]

Given the dogs won the premiership only two seasons ago, it is remarkable the amount of players they have lost since achieving that.

I've heard a few not so positive things about the environment & former coach, so there is/was something up.

 

[juss]

She's only a 'no name' because she's a defender.

She's a no name because she hasn't really achieved anything in the league and is fairly limited herself to be calling better players useless.

Anyway no point harping on, I'm sure Collingwood will have a bit of advice for her about better ways to say the same thing and I'm sure other clubs will use it as fuel on field when things aren't going her way. She's deserving of harsh critique of her performance now if she wants to call other players useless in interviews.

 

[The Falcon Strike]

Meh, I'm a fan of humility especially when it's coming from a no name. Especially when in the sport the lack of skills does half your job for the defenders. Also when your own skillset is extremely limited. Next Harris kicked a goal, so she kept her to her average, wow....

Meh what goes around comes around and I hope Livingstone likes the extra attention on her performance. If you're gonna talk the talk and criticise others you better be able to back it up for more than a game.

There was no lack of humility - she didn't talk herself up or raise herself above her teammates

She was giving an honest assessment about an opposition player.

Wish more sport removed the sanitising of their players.

 

[Cuzz09]

None of the girls have a nice fluent kicking style. Its that awkward snap style or hold it onto your boot style. floaty.

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[jatz14]

None of the girls have a nice fluent kicking style. Its that awkward snap style or hold it onto your boot style. floaty.

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Jenna Bruton, Maddy Prespakis, Georgia Gee, Monique Conti, Katie Brennan. Etc.

While it's true a much smaller percentage of players have a natural kicking action than the men, there are a few.

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[Goosecat]

The ball is already smaller. They use a size 4 (versus a size 5 used in the men's). They play 16 on the field instead of 18 to reduce congestion. Making the grounds smaller would only counteract that and as others have shown scoring is higher on bigger grounds. They have 5 interchange players (instead of 4) and have uncapped rotations. They only play 15 minute quarters. It works out to the equivalent of playing 3 quarters of a men's game.

So Freo's score of 60 on the weekend, extrapolated to 80 (an extra quarter) is the same as the men's average score in AFL in 2019. Obviously that's not an average score for the women but it does show the scoring can be in the ball park by the better teams already. Would love to see some data but I think the kicking distances are getting longer each year as well.

The only thing AFLW needs is time. The skill levels have improved noticeably in 4 years. Slightly diluted overall by the introduction of new teams but the pool of talent coming through juniors is also increasing exponentially and will easily offset that in time. Seasoned bodies still dominate the bests but the volume of 1st and 2nd year players impacting games early in their careers is increasing each year.

In a few years time the vast majority of players will have played football since childhood. There is plenty of talent on the horizon.

Obviously you aren't going to get athletic profiles (eg endurance) like you have in the men's unless you have full time professional athletes.

One of the questions swirling in my head is if AFL is too athletic-based these days? I see a bunch of players on every club's AFL list that are athletic but not that skilful (eg can't kick).

Can the AFLW get a better balance where talent rules supreme over athleticism? Could we eventually see a product that is arguably more entertaining not because how quickly or far someone runs but because it is a battle of two teams of ~20 players skills pitted against each other? I'm not sure how to achieve it but I think there is an opportunity.

Cheers for that, I didn't realise they were using the smaller balls and playing shorter games already. I admit I haven't been able to stomach a lot of it as yet, the quality isn't there yet.
As for larger grounds meaning larger scores, I'm not sold on that at all. I'm pretty sure despite a lengthy period of Ross Lyon inspired dour football at Sydney, the highest scoring ground on average for the AFL is still the SCG. The second highest scoring ground of those that play regularly was the Gabba I think, both are the shortest regular grounds played on.
Width is a different kettle of fish but overall length and the ability to move from one end to the other in the fewest kicks creates high scoring opportunities.
I get the thought process around size and congestion. But there are some stats that suggest shorter distances between goals, ups scoring opportunities.

 

[Underarm]

She's a no name because she hasn't really achieved anything in the league and is fairly limited herself to be calling better players useless.

Anyway no point harping on, I'm sure Collingwood will have a bit of advice for her about better ways to say the same thing and I'm sure other clubs will use it as fuel on field when things aren't going her way. She's deserving of harsh critique of her performance now if she wants to call other players useless in interviews.

That's the sort of out of context representation I was talking about. She said if you nullify her aerial game she's useless - Which is a pretty true statement about most Key forwards.

It's like saying "If you corrall Bachar onto his Right foot he's useless."

 

[jarrod_island_doggies]

Jenna Bruton, Maddy Prespakis, Georgia Gee, Monique Conti, Katie Brennan. Etc.

While it's true a much smaller percentage of players have a natural kicking action than the men, there are a few.

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Tayla famously so (or infamously some may say)

Add to that Ash Riddell, some of her field kicking is sublime - might not always be the prettiest action compared to a couple you mentioned though

 

[LeverPuller]

 

[wayToGo_]

But there are some stats that suggest shorter distances between goals, ups scoring opportunities.

Yeah I think that was some of the early thinking. Shorter grounds means the ball has to travel less but the latest stats seem to disprove that it creates higher scores and it is a fair bit more complex I suspect.

For instance on the weekend at the derby Freo attacked a lot from half back because WC actually won a lot of clearances (they were often hack kicks from the middle that got intercepted). But Trent Cooper (Freo's coach) said Freo scored more easily because they had more length to attack from. Compared to the Freo v Geelong game the week before where Freo hammered the i50s but were attacking from the middle or forward of centre and Geelong congested that part of the ground often putting an extra 4 players behind the ball (ie 9 defenders to 5 forwards) and it was tough to score. I suspect if Freo Oval was shorter in that game Geelong wouldn't have had the length to get the ball out the back of the Freo defenders to run on to to score and would have scored even less as well.

I also think if you speak to most forwards they want room to move so they'd often prefer wider and longer grounds over narrower and shorter grounds.

The effort required to mark out smaller grounds at all levels of football would take a lot of effort and I think you'd need pretty comprehensive data showing it would increase scores before going down that path. The women all seem to like playing on the same size ovals so if it isn't broken I wouldn't try and fix it.

 

[Filthy Sanchez]

The women all seem to like playing on the same size ovals so if it isn't broken I wouldn't try and fix it.

I don't think this expression is apt in this case. The low scoring clearly demonstrates that the game is 'broken', whether playing on smaller grounds would fix it or not remains to be seen.

 

[wayToGo_]

I don't think this expression is apt in this case. The low scoring clearly demonstrates that the game is 'broken', whether playing on smaller grounds would fix it or not remains to be seen.

Yeah fair enough. I'm also in a lucky position to have watched the AFLW team I support kick 15 goals across two games, not 4 like you or 3 like the WC fan I was responding to. But I also support the Freo AFL team - so I get it

 

[BringBackTorps]

On SEN Melb. Radio today, D. Russell said, re AFLW average kicking skills after Round 2

"...the skill level has improved 30% in the ability to hit targets".
Some other commentators have also said average kicking skills have improved- but haven't quantified it.

My subjective view is that kicking skills have increased- not sure it's 30% though.
If the average increase is actually about 30%, it seems a massive increase.

It will be a major boost to the AFLW if it is true (as scoring should increase, if players are more able to hit a moving forward- who then kicks a goal).


EDIT:

In the same D. Russell program, Carlton coach D. Harford said

"...the Magpies worked themselves out of congestion by a handball link-up game, not just kicking"

(ie Collingwood players with the ball, took chances with the ball- to attempt to retain possession, & go forward/sideways as much as possible whilst still holding the ball; as opposed to simply kicking the ball forward as long as possible, when pressured. This requires slick handballing skills, good positioning & hard running. I was at the game, which was of high standard, & Collingwood was very good at executing these skills).

 

[Clems Knee]

On SEN Melb. Radio today, D. Russell said, re AFLW average kicking skills after Round 2

"...the skill level has improved 30% in the ability to hit targets".
Some other commentators have also said average kicking skills have improved- but haven't quantified it.

My subjective view is that kicking skills have increased- not sure it's 30% though.
If the average increase is actually about 30%, it seems a massive increase.

It will be a major boost to the AFLW if it is true (as scoring should increase, if players are more able to hit a moving forward- who then kicks a goal).

Maths can be very interpretative.
if kicking was at 60% before, a 30% increase could mean the new percentage was 90% (wow, but calculated by simply adding 60 to 30) or 78% (still good but calculated by adding 30% of 60 to 60).
if kicking was at 30% before, it would now be 39%, which is still pretty poor.

 

[owen87]

I don't think this expression is apt in this case. The low scoring clearly demonstrates that the game is 'broken', whether playing on smaller grounds would fix it or not remains to be seen.

I've seen someone post the scoring stats from the 3 seasons thus far across various grounds, which shows pretty reliably the larger grounds have higher average scores.

Having a small playing field increases congestion and thus the number of potential contested situations, whilst the girls (currently) lack the ability to execute the kicks that switch play from one side to the other the way the men can that opens up space on the other side of the playing field. Some of this will improve with time, some is simply physical limitations.

 

[Bombermania]

The game and skills will gradually improve however there is an elephant in the room that will need to be addressed at some point.

The ground dimensions, equipment and current rules all revolve around men whom run faster and kick longer. A possible 3 kicks from one end of the ground to the other simply cannot be achieved in the female version.
That means more kicks, handballs and possessions are required to cover the equivalent distances for men. More possessions means more opportunities for error and turnovers, for each attacking movement. Whatever distances or pathways may be covered heading to goal in 4 or 5 possessions by the men will take an extra number of possessions for the females to replicate. Now we may eventually find the womens game utilising different styles and plans to try and lessen all those extra possessions required to cover equivalent distances, but the realities remain. They are playing on grounds marked for men and will never cover the same distances with kicks and handballs or achieve the same speeds (bar the odd exception). That is reality.

At some point ground dimensions or different line markings may be considered as well as equipment and rules. In women's Gaelic football there are a few rule variations, shorter game times and a smaller ball is used compared to the men which aids skill levels. I expect we will see similar variations in our game for the women eventually.

A number of women can kick an okay distance and the problem with smaller grounds is they can produce congested slow moving footy. Going back through VFL records the local grounds were not high scoring for that reason plus they were often boggy or impacted by weather.

If there is ever a Hawthorn side then it should use Glenferrie Oval which I think is a perfect size for the AFLW.

 

[Bombermania]

Pretty funny comment by that Collingwood girl Livingstone about Tayla Harris "If you stop her in the air shes useless"

Wish some of the blokes were this honest.



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The guys talk like that way from the camera but put on an act when in front of it.

Livingstone has put a target on her back for next time they play Carlton but its the sort of thing the AFLW needs to build into the boarder Collingwood / Carlton rivalry.

 

[Goosecat]

I've seen someone post the scoring stats from the 3 seasons thus far across various grounds, which shows pretty reliably the larger grounds have higher average scores.

Having a small playing field increases congestion and thus the number of potential contested situations, whilst the girls (currently) lack the ability to execute the kicks that switch play from one side to the other the way the men can that opens up space on the other side of the playing field. Some of this will improve with time, some is simply physical limitations.

I think that's mostly because the women don't yet have the fitness to cover as much territory and run both ways to aid defence on the bigger grounds. That will change as they become fitter and better runners, similar to what happened with the men that required the introduction of zones and minimum numbers etc to address the issue.
The ground size thing is interesting. In theory taken to it's extreme, if the goals were 50m apart we'd have near endless scoring, that's an inescapable truth.
At 100m apart with just 2 kicks end to end, what would the scoring be?.
The reason teams can get plays set up with defenders out the back actually stopping over the back scores is because the ball hasn't gone through the sticks. You can't keep putting numbers further back behind the contest if there is no further back. People argue the extra length gives the ability to sag back and create free runners out of defence turning it into attack but there are equally possible negating tactics to that. None of them are usable as often when 1 kick over your head has crossed the line and scored. If you keep the width so there is the threat of spread but shorten the distance between goals you get higher scoring. I just checked some states up to and including 2019 and the three highest scoring grounds of the regular ones are in order SCG, Gabba and Carrara (Metricon). Each is only a bit over 150m long but each has kept their width. I don't know if it's a coincidence that the three shortest grounds that have kept their width just happen to be the three highest scoring regular grounds. Of course weather and home teams might play a part but it's an interesting coincidence.