AFLW Western Bulldogs vs Richmond Sunday 6 February, 1.10pm Whitten Oval

[Tackle Bag]

Tough call on Chapman, I know the outputs don't bear that comment out, but it takes time. It takes about 6,000 hours of honing a skill to become elite, give or take. A lot of these girls are so far off that - the ones that played with brothers etc are really obvious, those hours add up, a bit like compound interest. It's why I think Beth Lynch is so worth working with, she could get to elite in this company if enough work can be done.

There’s the basic skill and then there’s the decision on where your kicking it. Many of our girls don’t even put the ball drop on Brennan’s side of the pack for example.

If you can’t direct a kick to a certain side or put it generally out in front of your target then you have no place being in a supposedly elite program.

I know it’s a work in progress and needs to be supported but today was not our finest effort and I hope they acknowledge that internally

 

[Phar Ace]

Played BB last night and it was telling on her performance today

No worse than last week, in fact she probably had a bit more run in the legs than last week. Here and there is not a problem, week after week would definitely have a cumulative effect.

 

[Bojangles17]

Voice of reason thank you!

We are batting pretty low atm. Two girls desperate for the run in key roles.

Not sure why Ferg is so attracted to D'arcy playing forward. We always step back up in a game when she goes back. She is no Rance, but she is such a good reader of the ball coming at her, and that simply doesn't happen yet for us when the ball is going forward.

Thought McDonald stepped up. Her run with role on Blackburn was Ok late - sure Blackburn killed us early, but MegMac subdued her late and got some ball too. It was a good training moment for her.

I wonder what our rotations dropped to compared to the Doggies?

Miller, where would we be without her - can't afford to lose her.

Need a really classy small forward while Yassir is finding her way and Stahl is losing her's.

Everytime ElMac got the ball we looked better. Now her teammates need to urgently need find space because she will give it if that is right option.

Great Wall of Prejudice! Nailed it again MR!

Good post kennel has never been kind to RFC , our tail is as weak as anyones as it brings us unstuck time and again , if yassir can step up in next 12m she will be a great addition as we lack pace
Ellie and Kelly were always gonna need the run , simply not enough contributors , Ill discipline at times with clumsy tackles , few htb not rewarded another gift in front of goal like wtf for

 

[Lord of the Wings]

Our midfield is miles behind the better teams as a unit. It’s the primary reason why we can’t go near most of the foundation sides + North Melbourne.

With the new expansion sides coming, I fear that it will take us a long time until we see a Richmond AFLW side with a decent midfield.

Honestly, I blame Kate Sheahan. The decisions she made early on has screwed us up for years in my opinion.

Having said that, our ends at full-strength aren’t too bad.

Kate Sheahan has been a disaster from day 1

 

[Phar Ace]

There’s the basic skill and then there’s the decision on where your kicking it. Many of our girls don’t even put the ball drop on Brennan’s side of the pack for example.

If you can’t direct a kick to a certain side or put it generally out in front of your target then you have no place being in a supposedly elite program.

I know it’s a work in progress and needs to be supported but today was not our finest effort and I hope they acknowledge that internally

When you are talking elite mens - no question! I hear and agree.

Many of these girls are just not as nuanced yet - especially after the first quarter when you tire and it affects your decision making ability.

Some of those Bulldogs girls have had 10 times the practice that most of our girls have had.

Compound that with the skill of kicking an oval ball to a prescribed position, where even a suburban male footballer can call upon his subconscious reasoning to fill the gaps in a moment of rushed determination. That is still to come for a lot of these girls. The younger ones coming through will have it more and more - nothing, but nothing, replaces repetition! Watch a girls U18 game to see what I mean - it's not pretty, but the subconcious skills are there in greater %'s

 

[Phar Ace]

Kate Sheahan has been a disaster from day 1

We don't agree on much but we can hug on this one

 

[Bojangles17]

Coaching staff clean out has to happen

Tesorio Coaching defence like seriously
Chapman been there over 5 years as kicking coach yet we still can't kick

Browne midfield coach very ordinary
And Ferguson good teacher but no tactical nous every other club has improved yearly we keep going backwards

Doesn’t make alot of sense , we do have a game style and barring this performance which I’ll say is an outlier have been competitive against fair sides kicking decent amount of goals
Our depth is woeful , injuries haven’t helped but our tail end just make up the numbers at best that’s where the focus needs to be , bloody challenging with 2 new Vic sides incoming

 

[Bojangles17]

We don't agree on much but we can hug on this one

I think disaster is being dramatic when you consider the recruits we’ve bought in , kb Conti cordner Hoskins x2 Kelly Darcy , Tesorio needs to go

 

[Cdog71]

Thought McDonald did some good to things

 

[Lord of the Wings]

I think disaster is being dramatic when you consider the recruits we’ve bought in , kb Conti cordner Hoskins x2 Kelly Darcy , Tesorio needs to go

What about Shevlin, Dargan, Federicks and the countless others that have been delisted already?

We've had x5 top 10 draft picks so far. We traded one for Conti (tick), drafted McKenzie (tick), traded for S Hosking (cross), Molan (massive cross) and Reid (looking shaky already).

We missed the pre-listing of Grace Egan and wasted our free hits in year 1 on the likes of Brancatisano, Monahan and Bernardi. All have been fails.

Edwards was a numpty when she played for us and yet handed Kelly her arse today. Shows our coaching and development is not up to scratch also

 

[tugga]

I didn’t get to see today’s game.
what is the early prognosis for Hannah’s knee?

 

[Phar Ace]

I think disaster is being dramatic when you consider the recruits we’ve bought in , kb Conti cordner Hoskins x2 Kelly Darcy , Tesorio needs to go

I think the comment was more about from Day1 (and I was being light hearted to a guy with a reputation on here to simply shoot from the hip).

Cordner, Hoskings, Kelly, D'arcy are of more recent times. We agree Tesoriero doesn't appear to have contributed much that has worked, especially drafting herself.

I guess the yardstick, in part, is are beating StKilda (though they were probably more injured)? Are we thereabouts with Gold Coast (though we lost)? And we are yet to tackle West Coast in Round 7? If Richmond is essentially coming off the worse of that four, disaster might be strong overall but how are you going to judge the first four years (including the VFLW year)?

 

[Bojangles17]

What about Shevlin, Dargan, Federicks and the countless others that have been delisted already?

We've had x5 top 10 draft picks so far. We traded one for Conti (tick), drafted McKenzie (tick), traded for S Hosking (cross), Molan (massive cross) and Reid (looking shaky already).

We missed the pre-listing of Grace Egan and wasted our free hits in year 1 on the likes of Brancatisano, Monahan and Bernardi. All have been fails.

Edwards was a numpty when she played for us and yet handed Kelly her arse today. Shows our coaching and development is not up to scratch also

Never going to get everyone right ,,,who the bloody hell does . I have shevlin ahead of 7-8 others , she’s not on the block . You appear to be deluded that the AFLW draft is Like 60-70 deep ,,,hot news for you , get real banana peel it bats about 10 deep with a few surprise packets thereafter and that’s the challenge in building a list

 

[Bojangles17]

I didn’t get to see today’s game.
what is the early prognosis for Hannah’s knee?

They’re suggesting it’s not an ACL which I hope is right , shes a paramedic , would be Devo for her

 

[Bulldog Joe]

When you are talking elite mens - no question! I hear and agree.

Many of these girls are just not as nuanced yet - especially after the first quarter when you tire and it affects your decision making ability.

Some of those Bulldogs girls have had 10 times the practice that most of our girls have had.

Compound that with the skill of kicking an oval ball to a prescribed position, where even a suburban male footballer can call upon his subconscious reasoning to fill the gaps in a moment of rushed determination. That is still to come for a lot of these girls. The younger ones coming through will have it more and more - nothing, but nothing, replaces repetition! Watch a girls U18 game to see what I mean - it's not pretty, but the subconcious skills are there in greater %'s

Sorry to intrude, but not sure where you get this point.

The Bulldogs have been in the comp longer, but have provided a lot of foundation players for others (eg Brennan and Conti plus other clubs)

Richmond have had the same opportunity as North, although North have benefitted from the long term relationship with University.

Patience required with AFLW to allow teams to develop.

 

[Bojangles17]

Sorry to intrude, but not sure where you get this point.

The Bulldogs have been in the comp longer, but have provided a lot of foundation players for others (eg Brennan and Conti plus other clubs)

Richmond have had the same opportunity as North, although North have benefitted from the long term relationship with University.

Patience required with AFLW to allow teams to develop.

Yea I realise that , nm have been an exception as an early expansion side that really aced their recruiting raids ,the rest of us have battled

 

[Phar Ace]

Sorry to intrude, but not sure where you get this point.

The Bulldogs have been in the comp longer, but have provided a lot of foundation players for others (eg Brennan and Conti plus other clubs)

Richmond have had the same opportunity as North, although North have benefitted from the long term relationship with University.

Patience required with AFLW to allow teams to develop.

Welcome! Happy to chat mate, not a problem with me.

What I'm referring to is where players get there countless foundation hours of training, of kicking, of scrimmaging etc, not their high performance stuff. Perhaps you didn't read the next paragraph where I fleshed that out a little? No doubt the Bulldogs have been hit hard and I for one am grateful for Brennan and Conti. Look at Blackburn for an example:

Early life​

Blackburn began playing competitive football in the under-9s division for the Beaconsfield Junior Football Club.[1][2] 2011 saw her named player of the carnival at the national under-18 championships. In 2013, she was the captain of the Victorian side at the under 18 championships, where she was named the competition's best-and-fairest player.[2][3] She was awarded under 18 All-Australian selection in 2011, 2012, and her final year of eligibility in 2013.[1]​

​

She attended high school at Hallam Senior College in Melbourne's outer east.[1] Blackburn played state football for Melbourne University in the VFL Women's (VFLW). She was drafted by Melbourne with the thirteenth pick in the inaugural women's draft in 2013 and represented the club in the women's exhibition games between 2013 and 2016.[2] Over this time she averaged 20 disposals per match for the club.[2] In July 2016, Blackburn was signed by the Western Bulldogs – the team that she played against in all of the exhibition matches – as one of two marquee players ahead of the inaugural AFL Women's season.[4]​

​

Imagine how often Chris Grant's daughter has kicked and scrimmaged the footy. Her footy IQ and skill is years ahead of some of our older girls.

All I was trying to say is it appears from how many of the Bulldog players play and can make quality subconcious decisions that are superior than Richmond's, especially the tired skill decisions, that they have a list of players with many, many times the hours practice - and that all helps so much.

It's not always the be all and end all, because then why would we ever need coaches etc. However, on balance, the capacity of someone who has handballed 10,000 times in scrimmage situations (like many of us did in schoolyards , after school in the street etc) compared to someone who has picked the game up as say a mid-aged teenager, or cross coded, is going to make better subconcious decisions just through pure weight of repetition when the player tires and decisions become challenged.

 

[Tiger_Gas]

jesus christ we are s**t

 

[Lord of the Wings]

Last time our women were this bad our men won the GF! So there is hope yet

 

[Bulldog Joe]

Welcome! Happy to chat mate, not a problem with me.

What I'm referring to is where players get there countless foundation hours of training, of kicking, of scrimmaging etc, not their high performance stuff. Perhaps you didn't read the next paragraph where I fleshed that out a little? No doubt the Bulldogs have been hit hard and I for one am grateful for Brennan and Conti. Look at Blackburn for an example:

Early life​

Blackburn began playing competitive football in the under-9s division for the Beaconsfield Junior Football Club.[1][2] 2011 saw her named player of the carnival at the national under-18 championships. In 2013, she was the captain of the Victorian side at the under 18 championships, where she was named the competition's best-and-fairest player.[2][3] She was awarded under 18 All-Australian selection in 2011, 2012, and her final year of eligibility in 2013.[1]​

​

She attended high school at Hallam Senior College in Melbourne's outer east.[1] Blackburn played state football for Melbourne University in the VFL Women's (VFLW). She was drafted by Melbourne with the thirteenth pick in the inaugural women's draft in 2013 and represented the club in the women's exhibition games between 2013 and 2016.[2] Over this time she averaged 20 disposals per match for the club.[2] In July 2016, Blackburn was signed by the Western Bulldogs – the team that she played against in all of the exhibition matches – as one of two marquee players ahead of the inaugural AFL Women's season.[4]​

​

Imagine how often Chris Grant's daughter has kicked and scrimmaged the footy. Her footy IQ and skill is years ahead of some of our older girls.

All I was trying to say is it appears from how many of the Bulldog players play and can make quality subconcious decisions that are superior than Richmond's, especially the tired skill decisions, that they have a list of players with many, many times the hours practice - and that all helps so much.

It's not always the be all and end all, because then why would we ever need coaches etc. However, on balance, the capacity of someone who has handballed 10,000 times in scrimmage situations (like many of us did in schoolyards , after school in the street etc) compared to someone who has picked the game up as say a mid-aged teenager, or cross coded, is going to make better subconcious decisions just through pure weight of repetition when the player tires and decisions become challenged.

Your points are valid and I don't know the Richmond list well enough to comment.
Blackburn is atypical of players that have come from other sports, but so is Brennan.

What your point indicates is that Richmond have not recruited enough with a footy background. They have picked up plenty from other clubs and Conti is an absolute star.

 

[Cdog71]

Blackburn is atypical of players that have come from other sports, but so is Brennan.

Brennan was playing U18 state footy at 14 in Queensland.

The mistakes our FD made in assessing the how the standard of the game would rise was so far off the charts, we haven’t recovered in terms of list building.
We’ve let players go we shouldn’t have and have been stuck with contracts and players who’s ceiling is at the level of a few years ago.
And like all other Vic teams we haven’t been able to get any development through the vflw so it feels like we’re just jumping up and down on the one spot.

Hopefully we can get some games through some of our kids in the vflw and identify some talent.

 

[TigermanM2]

People losing their marbles. Not sure what people were expecting but I had our team missing finals. With a healthy list I thought we'd be mid table behind the teams who started in 2017. If luck fell our way we might have even taken that last finals spot but a lot had to go right. Sometimes footy is great and sometimes it sucks. Right now it sucks! (but I'm still looking forward to the next game...which could be ugly!!!)

Since then we've been mashed by injury and the reality is that no expansion team has the list development to have the depth to cover key players. Not having McKenzie, Cordner and Wakefield has been a disaster for our structure.

Whatever you think of McLelland she will be a loss. She might make a few errors but she is big, strong and aggressive, yes sometimes overly so, but you could throw her back, forward or in the ruck and she filled important gaps. Dempsey was also a player who was in good form and got her hands on the ball. Losing Hannah on the weekend was terrible. Especially when you consider that this will impact her job outside of footy.

We are sitting 9th with Geelong, Doggies, Carlton, West Coast and St Kilda below us. Truth is that every team above us is better than us after having more time to develop their list. They have also been able to put time into their players in a pre covid world.

For those having a go at Ferg, well, he was the AFLW coach of the year against the Saints and now he can't coach. With very very few exceptions, players make coaches and if you don't have the cattle in the paddock in AFLW on gameday it doesn't matter who is coaching. My opinion of course.

With players either gone for the season or underdone the rest of the season is going to be challenging but it’s an opportunity for some of our players outside our best 21 and who have been around for a bit to show they belong. All we can do is keep backing our team.

 

[Cdog71]

All we can do is keep backing our team.

100%
Anyone who’s been following the Tiges for more than 10 years should know now is the time the team needs to hear the cheers and see the support.

It wasn’t that long ago for me that Richmond made finals twice in 32 years

 

[Phar Ace]

People losing their marbles. Not sure what people were expecting but I had our team missing finals. With a healthy list I thought we'd be mid table behind the teams who started in 2017. If luck fell our way we might have even taken that last finals spot but a lot had to go right. Sometimes footy is great and sometimes it sucks. Right now it sucks! (but I'm still looking forward to the next game...which could be ugly!!!)

Since then we've been mashed by injury and the reality is that no expansion team has the list development to have the depth to cover key players. Not having McKenzie, Cordner and Wakefield has been a disaster for our structure.

Whatever you think of McLelland she will be a loss. She might make a few errors but she is big, strong and aggressive, yes sometimes overly so, but you could throw her back, forward or in the ruck and she filled important gaps. Dempsey was also a player who was in good form and got her hands on the ball. Losing Hannah on the weekend was terrible. Especially when you consider that this will impact her job outside of footy.

We are sitting 9th with Geelong, Doggies, Carlton, West Coast and St Kilda below us. Truth is that every team above us is better than us after having more time to develop their list. They have also been able to put time into their players in a pre covid world.

For those having a go at Ferg, well, he was the AFLW coach of the year against the Saints and now he can't coach. With very very few exceptions, players make coaches and if you don't have the cattle in the paddock in AFLW on gameday it doesn't matter who is coaching. My opinion of course.

With players either gone for the season or underdone the rest of the season is going to be challenging but it’s an opportunity for some of our players outside our best 21 and who have been around for a bit to show they belong. All we can do is keep backing our team.

Yes and yes. Like the Coach, I had us a chance to make finals if everything went well for us. He still publically gives us a chance. We have been in every game we've lost, well into the 3rd or 4th quarters!

The one thing I will say about a healthy list is - all Clubs are having their problems in this regard, and with a squeak of luck we might have out performed more. We didn't get that squeak of luck. That said, Bulldogs loss Izzy, we don't have Wakefield. They probably missed Elle Bennetts, we definitely missed Cordner etc etc....... Then losing three mid-game, we were probably disadvantaged the most - that happens in footy. We got that blessed advantage over StKilda and looked world beaters - that squeak of luck.

As you said, losing one's marbles over the players we have right now, is overdoing it. That said, there are quite a few who want to know what photos Sheahan has that keeps her in a job. At least we have a coach (Ferg) who has given the girls a game style, a plan and a direction. I'm not really sure that existed with Tom Hunter, or if it did, it seemed to be lost in translation.

Agree 100% with MacLelland. She is not the most aesthetically pleasing footballer to watch skill wise, but her endeavour cannot be doubted. I'll bet the girls walk a bit bolder with her around - -example setters are good for a squad.

It's a Forum. Some here are going over the top after four losses in a row now - but that is what a Forum does for some. The ol 'Likes' are not that important, but when they are absent that tells a message I reckon. The comments you are not enjoying are not getting much traction - to use a favourite Monty Python:

 

[Phar Ace]

100%
Anyone who’s been following the Tiges for more than 10 years should know now is the time the team needs to hear the cheers and see the support.

It wasn’t that long ago for me that Richmond made finals twice in 32 years

In my lifetime up until 1990, I had seen 5 Richmond Premierships and Collingwood had not won a single one - life was so sweet! Then they won 1990 and 2010 and life was still pretty good - but since then we have won another three and life is so, so sweet! It's all a question of perspective!