Women's Footy Crows AFLW Season 2020 - The Defending Premiers

dplggr47

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Mar 13, 2008
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No Chelsea, no Erin, no Martin, no Scheer and Metcalfe on the return from ACL. Going to be a tough year.
 
Jun 7, 2011
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Some devastating news. As magic as Erin is, Chelsea is the heartbeat of the team.

https://www.afc.com.au/news/2019-11-26/aflw-chelsea-randall-to-miss-2020-season

Chelsea is my favourite by far. She’s my Brad Crouch of the women’s team. Different roles, but just uncompromising, hard at it, little glitz/glamour, just a true brute of a footballer. Gutted for her and our team. Not sure how old she is, hopefully just a year off and a handful of elite footy years ahead of her.
 

John Who

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Apr 16, 2017
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Heard this on the radio on the drive home from work. My thoughts were "what kind of BS luck are we having with the injuries??"

Hopefully the young crop of players we have will step it up. Gives the younger players more leadership responsibilities and hopefully some will shine more next year.

I hope Chelsea gets well soon, and more importantly hoping to see her play a few more years with us when she returns from injury!
 
Apr 29, 2008
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Oh no :( She's my favourite sportsperson, period. Devastating news :(

Rotten luck to have co-captains (who just happen to be arguably the two best players in the entire competition) and both of them are on the shelf with ACL injuries!

I'll really miss seeing her next year. At least it's happened early enough that she'll be right to go in 2021 - hopefully it's still in a Crows guernsey!
 

Firewalker

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Apr 20, 2009
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Like everyone has said awful news today with Chelsea, an absolute champion of a person and player.

Like Erin her loss is obviously irreplaceable as she’s the epitome of a ‘Unicorn’ player and to do it at pre-season training in what is a much more controlled environment is always harder to swallow, I remember Andy Otten doing his in late 2009 was always hard to take.

The club having a 5th acl in the last 12 months is of course again going to raise that concern over the league and whether anything can be done better to combat the issue, fair to say it’s to do with genetics and luck but you still can’t have players dropping off like flies.

Jess Foley was originally planned to be a CHF/CHB option. If Metcalfe makes her recovery that helps out. There is also Montana McKinnon who loves to intercept/contested mark.
Newman (Back/Wing), Gould (Utility), Campbell (half-back) are our other newer options that are on the list.

Reckon it will just be a reshuffle, Rajcic will move to CHB and Ange Foley will go back to playing deeper defence, given the make up of the list they’re comfortable playing an undersized defence even when playing against tall opponents.

You’d imagine Courtney Cramey will be named Captain and play down there in defence a bit to but with her age and long list of injury concerns she’s no certainty to make it through the season unscathed either so will be interesting if they name Ange Foley or someone else her co-captain and continue with that leadership model.
 
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Apr 29, 2008
31,674
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You’d imagine Courtney Cramey will be named Captain and play down there in defence a bit to but with her age and long list of injury concerns she’s no certainty to make it through the season unscathed either so will be interesting if they name Ange Foley or someone else her co-captain and continue with that leadership model.

Has Erin been written off? I'm still assuming she'll return as captain. I agree that Cramey and Foley are the obvious next choices if she doesn't.
 

Firewalker

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Apr 20, 2009
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Has Erin been written off? I'm still assuming she'll return as captain. I agree that Cramey and Foley are the obvious next choices if she doesn't.

You’d think Erin in the very best scenario won’t be back until the last couple of matches, it also could depend on how the team is tracking and who knows how this latest acl will effect the thinking of the club and Erin, I think you just have to go in thinking she won’t play.

Could also be time to look to the future and look at appointing Marinoff to a leadership position
 

John Who

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Apr 16, 2017
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You’d think Erin in the very best scenario won’t be back until the last couple of matches, it also could depend on how the team is tracking and who knows how this latest acl will effect the thinking of the club and Erin, I think you just have to go in thinking she won’t play.

Could also be time to look to the future and look at appointing Marinoff to a leadership position
I’m somewhat optimistic of Erin back and playing earlier for us. Stages of rehab:
- resting/waiting for surgical wounds to heal
- gradual strengthening to be training-fit
- gradual training to be match-fit.

Being an elite player and naturally strong body frame, I would hope she can return earlier than other players. Also, as long as her wounds have healed and she can do all the various types of running, a 90% fit Erin would still be a very handy player.
 

rocket18

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Aug 9, 2009
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Whilst not Crows AFLW related (maybe in a few years time) my local club, the Goody Saints are having a "come and try" day this Sunday at 10:30am for their under 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and senior womens teams.

How good is this!

Looks like the number of junior and senior womens footy will grow again next season.

As an aside the grandstand/clubrooms is being demolished this month to built a new clubrooms that incorporates additional change rooms/facilities for players.

It's amazing how many dad/daughters I see having a kick on the oval now - even seeing young teenage girls having a kick to kick, something I had never seen before the last few years.

Whilst I think the AFL have added too many teams too quickly the AFLW has certainly been a massive success story.

Once again the "greatness" of the game has prevailed over the continual stuff ups the AFL make - lop sided conferences, not enough rounds in the season, too many teams, horrible standard of AFLW umpiring (yes even worse then the AFL umps), scheduling etc.
 

John Who

Norm Smith Medallist
Apr 16, 2017
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Scheer was participating in training on Monday night. Erin is building up her loads and could also be available.
I get the feeling Chelsea’s injury is going to be motivation for Erin to try and get back playing for us early in 2020, just to have a leadership presence. Hoping both Chloe and Erin will return together.
 
Apr 29, 2008
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Northeast Suburbs
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