The throwing large sums of money at something that there's not a huge market for rarely works either. The AFL still does it regardless.
Play Nice The Merits of the AFL Womens League or lack thereof
- Thread starter Bostonian
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The throwing large sums of money at something that there's not a huge market for rarely works either. The AFL still does it regardless.
There is a huge market for participation, and the AFL has said all along, the payoff isn't in crowds its in participation numbers.
Given the recently released figures, that has already paid off.
In the context of things, net cost of this league hardly counts as huge either.
Country clubs may resist female footy to favour their netball team, but that will only last until either, girls leave to join other clubs that have a team, or, there are moves to set up an independent women's club in the area, or, they realise that lots of the girls they are turning away are not from the netball team so they are effectively turning away new members.
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- Thread starter
- #3
There's always been massive participation market for basketball. That's never translated into $$ or bums on seats at games.
So are you saying they want participation so it turns into crowd numbers or simply to be able to say we have a female football league aren't we wonderful.
I mean for years they crowed about how many girls were playing soccer. As far as I can see it's never turned into anything that people have embraced and helped grow to a popular sporting alternative for crowds.
My local team has two junior girls team and has for a few years now. Some of those girls play netball as well. If push comes to shove I'd rather the club pushed the netball sides far harder as a priority for the club as opposed to the girls football because the netball has proven to be a far more valuable asset to the sporting club than the girls football has.
Slack Nang
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Won't somebody think of the children
I'm sure your pearl clutching is appreciated by some and your benevolent sexism by others but why don't we leave those sort of decisions up to those who it actually affects
For example, not you
I'm sure your pearl clutching is appreciated by some and your benevolent sexism by others but why don't we leave those sort of decisions up to those who it actually affects
For example, not you
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- #5
Why dont we just leave the discussion for people who can do it in a civil fashion. Its a forum mate.
Having a player out for what amounts to an entire season, for something that is effectively a players choice, is something that should concern clubs and list managers, and not something that should be an automatic right in contract negotiations. Its a legitimate discussion point.
Slack Nang
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A legitimate discussion point? Sure it is, if it actually effects you but it doesn't
Dude, my previous post is about as civil as I get. I regret signing up
Dude, my previous post is about as civil as I get. I regret signing up
Everything that effects footy effects us, its a footy forum. Lawyers will be crawling up sports admins arses about the consequences of subjecting a pregnant women to stressful situations. If said pregnancy goes bad, whether it had anything to do with the sport itself or not, the sport (any sport) will s**t itself.
Even if they do not get sued, they will get publicly crucified. The pregnancy declaration is self protection.
I personally believe that footy for women and men should be the same, and a women has as much right to run the risk of injury in any pursuit as a man. People objecting at women participating in dangerous pursuits on the grounds of `looking out for them` are practising an insidious form of sexism.
That said, pregnancy is the one genuine significant biological difference in a collision sport, and those arguing, `they never ask the men if they have fathered children`, are being deliberately obtuse. If it isnt an issue, let the men put their todlers in a carry bag and play with then strapped to their back.
In the handful of exhibition games, we have already had one player rupture a kidney from a knee (ironically, an obs gynae), you do not think that knee could do some damage to a full uterus?
Also, if you regret joining, feel free to * off.
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- #8
You can have opinions on so very many things that dont affect you directly.
BringBackTorps
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Female football participation, cf percentage of females playing other sports, has a direct impact on future grass roots football strength and prosperity; and popularity of the AFL as well.
It should be noted that mothers have a VERY important role to play in what sports their children take up. This is even more so if they are SINGLE mothers (currently, about 23% of kids live in single parent homes -nearly always headed by the mother. In 1970, the same scenario was 5%). Therefore, if many women are playing different sports now eg basketball, soccer, netball etc, when they have children in the future, they are more likely to push their kids into those sports, as they are more familiar with, and prefer,them.
So if your football club gave priority to its netball team, and this was widely followed by many football clubs, so the number of female footballers dropped off, we could be creating a problem in the future.
Kids, who have mothers much more interested in non AF sports, are less likely to play, or follow, football. So, in your soccer example of a very big recent increase in females playing soccer (currently over 700,000 now), it would be very foolish for the AFL to ignore this. The "soccer mother" kids are certainly more likely to play soccer. Soccer participation, for boys and girls, combined is easily the biggest participation sport in Australia, and is still growing.
Average AFL crowds have dropped from about 36,000 to about 32,000 over the last 5 years; and total AFL attendances have been stagnant, despite now having 1 extra AFL game pw!
It would be treachery for any AF club to promote and/or favour netball (or other sports) over AF. Such a dangerous policy, also, would undoubtedly anger the AF-leaning FC members, parents and female players.
I do understand the sensitivity that might exist in small country towns -where it was believed there were insufficient athletic females in the district to have both female football AND netball teams.
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- #10
Once mothers start seeing their daughters getting knocked out and injured all the time they aren't going to be pushing their daughters in to AFL.
Garlic muncher
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- #12
It might surprise you but in AFL football the likelihood of getting injured is far higher in AFL when compared to other female sports with high participation numbers.
Garlic muncher
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But you said all the time, i think netballers, basketballers etc have a pretty high occurrence of ACL etc, at any rate we shall see, i sincerely hope we don't see any serious injuries, but you cant discount it.
I have watched a fair bit of women's football, in fact my daughter played for a WWAFL team in Perth a couple of years ago, since then i have had nothing to do with it, but i did not notice any great or serious injuries in the course of watching.
What needs to be reinforced to the girls is not to take football sayings literally, sure keep your eyes on the ball, but you also must keep your eye on what the opposition and teammates are up to, to blindly keep your eyes on the ball oblivious to anything else is going to get you hurt.
Higher does not equal all the time, and it's not that much higher. Netball has a significant injury rate, and it doesn't stop them playing.
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- Thread starter
- #15
Sports science has already mentioned that concussions are likely to be a bigger factor in women's football has it not?
Netball injuries aren't generally high impact injuries, they are twisting and turning injuries.
If it's an issue in men's leagues it's going to be an issue in women's leagues.
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- #16
Neither of those sports have high impact injuries to the degree Aussie Rules does.
Once the speed of the game picks up things will change. I've seen women's footy over the years and it's generally been a much slower game than what it will eventually get too. With speed high impact injuries cause more damage.
What you're describing is going to make it look like a weak contest. If players are going to pull out of contests all the time it won't do anything for the sport or its image.
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As jatz has already noted, hard to imagine any sport in the world that has more knee injuries than netball.
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- #18
Very few get knocked out or spill blood. Those types of images will disturb the parent of a young kid more than a knee injury.
Garlic muncher
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That is not what i said, but anyways ......
BringBackTorps
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I'm heavily involved in community football, including having a strong interest in female football.
What you have said above is completely untrue. "...all the time...".
The USA spends more on medical research than any other country, and is considered to have the world's best medical research facilities and researchers.
Based on extensive medical research from within the USA and other countries, US medical authorities about 18 months ago banned heading of the ball by very young soccer players.
These authorities advised that constant heading, involves repeated shaking of the brain, and could cause, very gradually, serious brain damage. It is irrelevant if there is no full or partial loss of consciousness when the ball is headed.
What are your views of very young soccer players heading the ball?
It has been widely reported for many years that female netball has the highest number of serious knee injuries in female sport, due to the sudden halting action required?
Do you believe this is correct?
- Thread starter
- #21
The very same studies you are putting forth are the same studies that state
.
So well done on pointing out that concussions in women's AFL football will be a far bigger issue than for the men. My views are heading a soccer ball is nothing like getting hit in a high contact, high impact sport like AFL.
What you're pointing out won't affect a parents views on a sport like soccer when compared to AFL because it won't be an in your face visual. If they are getting concussed a lot in soccer AFL is going to be a nightmare for it.
Once they start getting lined out or split open and bleeding all the time that's the kind of in your face visuals that put parents off a sport.
Knee injuries aren't comparable to head injuries. They are viewed as being unlucky. Getting hit hard in AFL is part of the game.
All the interviews I have seen of female footballer's, usually the superficial pandering type of interview, inevitably asks, why do you like football? The answer almost always involves the roughness.
There will be plenty of girls to whom football does not appeal, who are put of by the physicality. They are not the ones taking it up.
In a world that still expects females to be gentle, careful, afraid even, football with its physicality, danger and excitement really appeals.
That it is a sport that involves danger, blood and risk is one of the reasons they play it. Most parents get that.
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- Thread starter
- #23
It's a novelty for now and that's all. If the science indicates that as a sport AFL posses more potentially long lasting health risks to young girls and women than their male counterparts then it will eventually have an affect on parents views.
Wanting to play it and being physiologically suited to playing it are different matters.
Getting hit hard isn't part of ozkick, or part of under 13s. Yes, collision intensity will increase as female footy gets better, but not until 16 or so, and then only in the more high performance streams.
The girls, and parents at this point are well committed, and well aware of the risks.
Brittany Bonicci did have repeated head trauma end 2014/15, to the point of collapsing randomly, and was told she may never play again, however she improved, and the moment she got the all clear, she went back to footy.
I do not expect women walking away to be much different than men walking away from the sport. It will happen, but will not be a deciding factor.
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Played it all my life, never considered an accidental head injury, or a knee injury to be any different.
Not to harp on the anecdotes. Tayla Harris was tweating a couple of months back about breaking her nose at training. I would call the general tenor of her posts as 'secretely chuffed'. The videos of female clubs shows girls pleased to be talking about their 'war wounds'.
Your comments are correct about a lot of girls, and a lot of parents. Those girls are not playing high level competitive footy, never were, and never will.
The girls that are, are going to tweet and Instagram the s**t out of it if they ever come of a footy field dripping blood.
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