AFLW Round 10 - 2023 AFLW season

[GC2015]

There’s nothing wrong with being bullish about your team, but if you’re going to be so ridiculously selective about it, you’re setting yourself up for failure. It becomes delusion.

It’s great that Gold Coast travelled well, but they won 6.5 games this year, and 3.5 of them were against the bottom 4 teams. Essendon only played a bottom 4 team once - and they lost that game - all their wins were against teams placed 6-14th. So you can see the point robbieando is making.

Both Gold Coast and Essendon scored one top 8 win each this season and neither was against a top 4 team. That means all their wins outside of one came against bottom 10 teams. Sure, you could argue Essendon's wins were slightly better but losing to West Coast hurts the Essendon argument too if you're going to look at everything. Plus the travel factor that the Suns were able to overcome and Essendon weren't. Overall I think their seasons were pretty similar in terms of achievements and that's reflected in their ladder positions. Ultimately I think their performances in the finals will determine which club will be viewed as having the better season because there are no easy games left. If one of them can pull off a big upset against a top 4 team in week 2 of the finals then that will obviously be the tiebreaker.

Top 12 Melb teams…wtf
You obviously don’t mean the 4 point win over Bulldogs I spose.

I was referring to interstate wins against your team (10th) and Collingwood (11th). The Bulldogs (18th) win was on our home ground. Also, we were very close to scoring another interstate win against Carlton (12th) in round 1.

Mate, enjoy being in the finals but give us a spell with the “we don’t get the respect we deserve” stuff.
Couple of things didn’t go your way last year and a couple did this year.

It’s the fixture and a great conversion rate in front of goal that’s got you into finals.
You’ve had 111 scores with 61 goals.
That’s 55% that might be the best in the comp this year.
Ave 11 scores a game.

Well you're the first person I've seen actually give our club some credit for a good conversion rate in front of goal. So I guess thanks for recognising that... even though you've sort of suggested we don't deserve the recognition in the previous paragraph.

GC have had 13 goalless quarters this season and without Rowbottom this week I think you just may end up with a couple more.

Perhaps. Although not having Rowbottom didn't seem to really affect us that much on Friday night. We scored 7 goals with Rowbottom the week before and 6 goals without her on Friday night. Whitfort, Single and Drennan stepped up in her absence and we dominated Essendon for large parts of the game. Leads me to believe the Suns aren't quite the 'one-woman team' that some think they are. FWIW Sydney seem far more Molloy-centric. Shut her down and the Swans seem to really struggle.

 

[Teen Wolf]

Essendon will be regarded as having had a good season, as long as they put up a bit of a fight in their first finals appearance, unlike some previous expansion teams.

Geelong's 66-point loss in 2019, and Gold Coast losing by 70 points in 2020, really made a mockery of the competition.

 

[The Victorian]

Essendon will be regarded as having had a good season, as long as they put up a bit of a fight in their first finals appearance, unlike some previous expansion teams.

Geelong's 66-point loss in 2019, and Gold Coast losing by 70 points in 2020, really made a mockery of the competition.

In fairness, 2020 was a result of back to back trips to Perth

 

[Cdog71]

though you've sort of suggested we don't deserve the recognition in the previous paragraph.

I don’t mean it like that..
The difference an extra 10-15 games against quality opponents a group can build through together is massive, and teams that came in later still have to do that and the teams with the most collective games played together are still the ones to try and catch.
And some teams are getting closer.
I think some things went your way this year and I do think other teams in bottom half of the 8 have a bit more scoring threats but good on ya’s for making it and I hope GC can play the way they want and go in there with all guns blazing.

 

[GC2015]

The difference an extra 10-15 games against quality opponents a group can build through together is massive, and teams that came in later still have to do that and the teams with the most collective games played together are still the ones to try and catch.

I totally agree. Statisticians call it Team Work Index (TWI). It measure the cohesion of a team and it almost always indicates which team is more likely to win. For the Suns AFLW team specifically, the list has been nearly entirely overhauled since that first 2020 season in which finals was also achieved. Only Ahrens, Bella, Stanton & Howarth (who has been injured all season) remain on the list from that inaugural team that made the finals three years ago. Compare that to a team like Brisbane who still have inaugural players on their list from 2017 like Anderson, Campbell & Koenen and it's really chalk and cheese in terms of team cohesion. Those three Lions have legitimately played 70ish AFLW games together (two of which are in the same part of the ground) and that's the kind of experience/cohesion you can't buy. Particularly when they've experienced a lot of winning together in the past. It's easily the biggest disadvantage the expansion teams face when compared to the heavyweight teams of the AFLW and it's still going to take a few years for that to even itself out.

I think some things went your way this year and I do think other teams in bottom half of the 8 have a bit more scoring threats but good on ya’s for making it and I hope GC can play the way they want and go in there with all guns blazing.

I think you need a bit of luck to go your way in order to make a jump up the ladder like our girls did this season. Were we fortunate to beat Richmond after the siren? Sure, but I would also say we were unfortunate to not beat Carlton in round 1 with the way the fourth quarter played out. Some go your way and some go against you. Ultimately, winning momentum can take you a long way in sports and Carlton's male team is a great example of that this year. Chloe Molloy is definitely a big scoring threat and she's the one that worries me in this upcoming final but I do think we're a better team than Sydney (overall) so playing the game on our home deck certainly puts us in a great position to advance IMO. Either way we're going to see history because one club is going to get their first AFLW finals win on Saturday night.