Game Day AFLW R1 2019 - Crows vs Dogs @Norwood (2/2/19)

[John Who]

And while the AFL have royally forked up a number of areas in relation to the AFLW (don't get me started on the umpiring for starters), many people can't seem to look at the long term results that will come out of the rush to get it into the public domain. The crowds over this past opening weekend were not bad at all still. The long term results are when those young girls of primary school age get to be drafted into the AFLW after similar development paths to the boys who get drafted into the AFL. As the Fremantle coach said on the weekend who has been the WA women's development squad coach for the past two years, that the girls listen and understand quicker than the boys have in his experience. They want to learn more than the boys do. That's from someone who has coached male and female development teams.

I actually thought the umpiring standard has also lifted than in previous years. Sure, there were a few iffy ones, but nothing that was crazy silly.

I get the feeling the girls are easier to coach because they're keen to show the public that the game can lift beyond recognition. These early years are the key to the changes needed to have an impact for growth of AFLW, and the girls currently playing are the trendsetters. The thing I'm loving right now is seeing the commitment to go at the body and at the ball. This is all anyone can really ask. Other skills will flow and improve once the commitment is there.

As for the people who keep mentioning the low scores, it was only low due to inaccuracy, not due to lack of scoring shots. Disappointing result, but happy we tried all night, and happy to see the improvements year by year.

 

[NikkiNoo]

I actually thought the umpiring standard has also lifted than in previous years. Sure, there were a few iffy ones, but nothing that was crazy silly.

I get the feeling the girls are easier to coach because they're keen to show the public that the game can lift beyond recognition. These early years are the key to the changes needed to have an impact for growth of AFLW, and the girls currently playing are the trendsetters. The thing I'm loving right now is seeing the commitment to go at the body and at the ball. This is all anyone can really ask. Other skills will flow and improve once the commitment is there.

As for the people who keep mentioning the low scores, it was only low due to inaccuracy, not due to lack of scoring shots. Disappointing result, but happy we tried all night, and happy to see the improvements year by year.

The umpiring is poor, especially around tackling. That has been a problem from the start because the umpires are inexperienced and leads to increase in injuries from poor technique that players (especially the ducking by bulldogs players) they are allowed to continually get away with. I see this at the lower state levels which I play in as well. The Bulldogs are well known amongst other AFLW team players for their ducking etc. They put themselves in harms way to get frees and the AFL was trying to stamp this out, but the umpires are not experienced enough to adjudicate this properly. They need the best umpires umpiring at this level to help improve the quality and understanding from players, especially those who are cross-coders.

 

[WaynesWorld19]

Gotta say as someone who has been highly emotional & supportive of the first 2 years of the AFLW competition ......this year, i've really been a bit ho-hum about it

Trying to work out why ?
1. The whole post Christmas Period has been like a vacume of footy discussion ......in particular, next to no hype by the AFL ...but likewise the Crows have done the mandatory stuff, but nothing to get me emotionally involved

2. I was a bit unhappy about 2 extra teams in 2019 and 4 next year .....I've got a better understanding now, but IMO thje AFL have done a lousy job of explaining their competition growth strategy

3. I looked up the broadcast arrangements for the weekend games, saw the Crows game was on Foxtel .....so thought nothing more ....then stumbled on it being shown live on AFL.com ......that was very poor !

You keep hearing that staff at the AFL are doubling workloads to handle AFLW .....in otherwords the comp is under resourced

How's everyone else feeling

 

[dplggr47]

Gotta say as someone who has been highly emotional & supportive of the first 2 years of the AFLW competition ......this year, i've really been a bit ho-hum about it

Trying to work out why ?
1. The whole post Christmas Period has been like a vacume of footy discussion ......in particular, next to no hype by the AFL ...but likewise the Crows have done the mandatory stuff, but nothing to get me emotionally involved

2. I was a bit unhappy about 2 extra teams in 2019 and 4 next year .....I've got a better understanding now, but IMO thje AFL have done a lousy job of explaining their competition growth strategy

3. I looked up the broadcast arrangements for the weekend games, saw the Crows game was on Foxtel .....so thought nothing more ....then stumbled on it being shown live on AFL.com ......that was very poor !

You keep hearing that staff at the AFL are doubling workloads to handle AFLW .....in otherwords the comp is under resourced

How's everyone else feeling

I agree about the expansion. They're introducing 6 new teams over 2 years, yet the competition still spans the same number of weeks. The teams don't all play each other and there's this conference system.

In terms of broadcast arrangements, all Crows games are free to air on channel 7. Every game is accessible through afl.com (not sure if you need a live membership).

 

[Next Gen Rookie]

Seems our game was the anomaly of the week. There will be games that are lower scoring due to the pressure around the ground.

Game is 25% shorter than a men's match, so got to allow for that too.

Goals each game.
6
3
9
17
8

 

[1970crow]

How are they realistically going to gel with 7 game season. They are all off to play polo, basketball and tennis again in a few weeks. This needs to be a proper season of 20 odd games run concurrently with the blokes comp. maybe even play before the men’s game sometimes.

I don’t think they want it to compete with the men’s game or remove the best shed load of players from the state leagues. Gut feel is that there’d be a bit of resistance playing it as a curtain raiser to AFL games as well.

 

[mistylake]

It would die completely if up against the men's game. AFL got it right putting it in summer when people are starved of footy and will watch anything

My thoughts to. So it’s kind of an exhibition type thing like us playing in Dubai or China etc.

 

[mistylake]

I don’t think they want it to compete with the men’s game or remove the best shed load of players from the state leagues. Gut feel is that there’d be a bit of resistance playing it as a curtain raiser to AFL games as well.

Resistance from who and why?
I know it would be more expensive to hire the better venues the blokes play at.

 

[John Who]

Seems our game was the anomaly of the week. There will be games that are lower scoring due to the pressure around the ground.

Game is 25% shorter than a men's match, so got to allow for that too.

Goals each game.
6
3
9
17
8

The scoring shots by us, was on par with the other games, just the goals were being missed very frequently!
The positive is that the goals can only increase from here onwards!

 

[cmndstab]

I reckon Phillips should be locked in the forward line at FF.

I don't know about locked there, but I think she should definitely play the majority of game time there. She can create goals out of nothing, and with Marinoff seemingly returning to form (hopefully she maintains it) we can spare her. If things are getting out of control in the centre bounce she can make cameos there.

I'm just not sure how to feel about the Randall debate. I love her down back, I think she's brilliant there. But I agree that we need her marking skills and strong kicking ahead of centre. I wonder if she wouldn't mind rotating a bit to see how it goes.

 

[cmndstab]

I actually thought the umpiring standard has also lifted than in previous years. Sure, there were a few iffy ones, but nothing that was crazy silly.

The umpiring picked up in the second half, but the first quarter in particular was a comedy of umpiring errors. Bad decision after bad decision for nearly the entire first quarter.

 

[John Who]

The umpiring picked up in the second half, but the first quarter in particular was a comedy of umpiring errors. Bad decision after bad decision for nearly the entire first quarter.

Yep, 1st quarter was the standard usual bad. Then it got better as the game went on. For the first time watching AFLW, I've felt the loss was due to our incompetence rather than the umpires showing overt bias.

 

[cmndstab]

Speaking of our own incompetence, we basically lost the game in a two minute patch when we let the Bulldogs score back-to-back goals towards the end of the second quarter, their only two goals for the game. Has anybody gone and looked at who was playing down there in that time? From memory it was late in the quarter, I wonder if there was some late rotations that left us slightly short-staffed back there?

Take that two minute patch out and we kept them stifled for almost the entire game.