Game Day AFLW Round 4, 2024: West Coast vs Brisbane

[Carbine Chaos]

Ella Roberts continues to be next level good btw.

 

[Carbine Chaos]

Gibbo! Like shelling peas.

We certainly did not deserve to go goalless today.

 

[Tas]

I didn't realise the commentary is the Brisbane cheer squad.

 

[HoneyBadger35]

Tough day, Brisbane so clearly a class above and a timely reminder as to what we’re trying to build towards.

Despite that, some really nice individual moments and the effort never dropped. Zakfer, Drennan, Roberts the standouts, Lewis never gave up, Lakfer had moments too. Thought Lyons had moments in the ruck, despite our ruck division giving away 400 frees (more on that later). Daisy has had two games where the response after a Q1 shellacking has been very pleasing, obviously knows what she’s doing.

The team needs to get more disciplined at not rolling up to the ball carrier if they’re no chance of getting there, it happened time and again and Brisbane are too good to not make you pay. General story of the day really, Lions too good, well structured, committed to the plan. Bloody good team.

Didn’t influence a thing as we were so wholly overpowered, but **** me that umpiring was exhausting to watch. Two sets of rules and so deflating when we’d apply chains of pressure just for some invented call to relieve it, then chuck a few random 50s on for good measure.

Said beforehand it was generally a free hit, and I liked the work rate but there’s simply a gulf in talent and structure.

Final thought, the AFL can get ****ed scheduling this many games in a few days - how many lists are onto their top up players now?

 

[Ochre]

Thought it was a good reflection of how far we've come and how far we've got to go. 25-10 the sort of free kick count that gets calls for royal commissions when its in our favour.

 

[Bacchus]

Got obliterated really, but to their credit the girls kept fighting to the end.

This was a reality check, and shows how far we have to go - a long way.
Competitive with the bottom teams, classes below the top echelon.

Brisbane appeared much fitter and faster, and their structure killed us. Virtually every player appeared to be a competitor and contribute. They are actually a pretty impressive football team, heaps better than when women’s football began.

We were missing about five or six best 22 players and it showed.
Gooch was a handy player in her prime but now she can’t get out of first gear. Don’t see the point in playing her in front of a younger player.
Verity Simmons is a goer but her lack of basic skills shows, cannot hit up a pass even from a short distance.
I wonder whether Sarah Lakay should be played with her lack of mobility. Kicked a good goal at the end.

A few players are basically carrying the team.

The umpiring did not influence the result but was next level bad. Umpiring across both leagues is a negative on the game.

 

[DanWCE]

25-10 the sort of free kick count that gets calls for royal commissions when its in our favour.

Quite a few from the ruck which you would think are some of the easier calls to nail given it's a genuine one on one with the umpire right on the spot. I couldn't get my head around many of them and they don't tend to run it back with a replay in AFLW, most likely to avoid shining a light on what could be a poor decision or highlighting poor skills.

 

[jatz14]

Got obliterated really, but to their credit the girls kept fighting to the end.

This was a reality check, and shows how far we have to go - a long way.
Competitive with the bottom teams, classes below the top echelon.

Brisbane appeared much fitter and faster, and their structure killed us. Virtually every player appeared to be a competitor and contribute. They are actually a pretty impressive football team, heaps better than when women’s football began.

We were missing about five or six best 22 players and it showed.
Gooch was a handy player in her prime but now she can’t get out of first gear. Don’t see the point in playing her in front of a younger player.
Verity Simmons is a goer but her lack of basic skills shows, cannot hit up a pass even from a short distance.
I wonder whether Sarah Lakay should be played with her lack of mobility. Kicked a good goal at the end.

A few players are basically carrying the team.

The umpiring did not influence the result but was next level bad. Umpiring across both leagues is a negative on the game.

Our younger and less experienced players were just outrun. One of the reasons they had better structure, they have players that always make the contest, and we didn't.

And it was clear they were hiding Gooch. She started back, and whoever was on her just ran, and Gooch ended up 10m back, and irrelevant. This was clearly a tactic, so she was switched forward.

On SM-A346E using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Tas]

The umpiring did not influence the result but was next level bad. Umpiring across both leagues is a negative on the game.

I think the AFL is at fault for this. They have made the rules harder and harder to officiate over time, with a lot of soft, very technical free kicks, the game would be hard to officiate even if you did it via a slow motion camera.

I'd say the vast majority of ruck infringements do not have any meaningful impact on the ruck contest, these free centre clearances can be devastating.

Umpires are also part time workers so there is only so much time they can devote to ensuring they all have the ability to consistently make the right calls.

I think they should make adjustments to the rules so they are fairer and easier to adjudicate, things like prior opportunity and disposing of the ball. Just change it so you have to always legally dispose of the ball, just give more time for someone who hasn't had prior opportunity or ball it up if they haven't had a reasonable chance to get rid of it. Don't pay frees for high contact or touching the arms unless it has impacted the contest, etc.

A lot of rules were brought in to try and speed up the game and score more but they haven't worked and the ability to score was only harmed by the AFL introducing rotation caps so players become more fatigued, we don't need a whole slew of extremely soft technical rules to make up for other dumb rules they introduced into the game... just get rid of rotation caps or significantly increase them if you want teams to score more.