3 hours ago, rjay said:

Sorry 'Lucifer', you can't compare the 2 games. It's the nature of soccer is it's a low scoring game and that you are on the edge of your seat for the whole game because at any moment the score could come.

The skills are sublime.

You can't relate that to womens football. The nature of Australian football is it's a free flowing and scoring game but despite all their best efforts in the AWFL the scores are low because the skills at this stage are poor.

Fair comments rjay. Perhaps it is the closeness of a game rather than the scoreline which creates the excitement eg Dees vs Giants last week.

I was drawing attention to 'goals scored' seemingly being the sole measuring stick for the AFLW being enjoyable to watch (and a defacto measure of its success). 

Its a shame the focus is on 'low' scores for which there are many reasons: 

• innate skill,
• short 'pre-season'
• inexperience playing as a team,
• low time the ball is 'in-play' (from short quarters and limited time-on),
• 16 players on full sized oval,
• Player related - experience, fitness, match practice, part-timers, non-football backgrounds etc.

Yet Hocking puts the low scores down to 'congestion' and defensive coaching!  Hocking hurt his own product this week by generating negative headlines and a negative narrative.  Hocking needs to nurse this through because the scorelines won't get better in a hurry. 

Wonder what he will come up this week:  last night's game scores were 3.12.30 to 1.3.9.  A grand total of 4 goals!!

13 hours ago, Caligula's Cohort! said:

I'm all for AFLW league, but if you want to be professional, then you need to look professional. Daisy Pearce and Mel Hickey are obviously the role models for the game. But when I see players like Cranston who to me looks 15kgs overweight, it just doesn't look good for the game. I saw several large women running around across the games on the weekend and I honestly couldn't take it seriously. Schoolboys could run all over them. I haven't even mentioned skills yet, but gosh they were atrocious and on par with a under 16's schoolboy games just from watching the first half of the Melb vs GWS game.

In short, work on your bloody fitness so you can at least resemble an athlete and learn how to kick properly and you'll make the game more bearable to watch. 

 

Um, she lost 15 kgs since last season and of her 3 goals, one was outrunning an opponent and another was the match-winner. Not to mention a sublime pick-up at full speed out of a contest which we'd marvel at in the men's game. All in the second half when other players were running out of gas.

Looks pretty good to me. 

If you want more scoring, get rid of percentage and replace it for working out ladder positions by point scored.

 

it isn’t hard, just a pity those that run the game are idiots.

On 2/10/2018 at 5:48 AM, Lucifer's Hero said:

I'm not sure where the 15 goals comes from?  An AFL game is 120 minutes but an AFLW game is a little over half that at 68 minutes (with 16 relatively inexperienced players).  If last week's scores are adjusted for time played they would be much more like an AFL game. 

Upscaling/adjusting of the scores from yesterdays MFC Vs Crows game  for minutes played would have us scoring almost the 100 points level (98.82 to be precise) generally considered to be par in the men's game.  Even then, there were numerous times in the second half of last season our mens team failed to get above the 100 points mark.

On 2/9/2018 at 11:30 PM, Caligula's Cohort! said:

I'm all for AFLW league, but if you want to be professional, then you need to look professional. Daisy Pearce and Mel Hickey are obviously the role models for the game. But when I see players like Cranston who to me looks 15kgs overweight, it just doesn't look good for the game. I saw several large women running around across the games on the weekend and I honestly couldn't take it seriously. Schoolboys could run all over them. I haven't even mentioned skills yet, but gosh they were atrocious and on par with a under 16's schoolboy games just from watching the first half of the Melb vs GWS game.

In short, work on your bloody fitness so you can at least resemble an athlete and learn how to kick properly and you'll make the game more bearable to watch. 

 

Doesn't look as 'unfit' as Tony Locket did at times when he played and no one seemed to make a huge thing about that.  

I don't recall plugged going for too many runs on the ball like Cranston either.

On 2/9/2018 at 10:35 AM, Little Goffy said:

On the congestion issue, I would guess that you could almost build an imaginary equation to explain it. Obviously in any game of footy congestion happens whenever the ball gets stuck in one space long enough for extra players (the peloton?) to arrive.

So, the 'trouble' is that in the women's game the player's willingnes to work hard to get to contests has reached a standard above a balance with player's ability to quickly grab and dispose of the ball.

The two main skill deficiencies in the women's game seem to be

a) collecting a loose ball from the ground

b) quick, effective handballs to a teammate to open up into space.

Both are skills that take a lot of practice. And then some more practice. And some more practice after that. They are also skills that basically don't turn up in any other sport that players might be switching across from. Not in netball, soccer, basketball, long distance running, or even ultimate frisbee.

So it makes sense that they are the skills coming through most slowly for new players. And unfortunately I expect it will continue to be a slow process improving those particular skills.

On the one hand, it'll take years to really pick up, while we wait for all those Auskick girls to have spent ten years with a Sherrin in their hands all day.

On the other hand, there's definitely no biological reason limiting women's ability to collect a loose ground ball or to execute an effective handball. So, for the fans, when you see that error, at least you'll know that it will eventually clear up.

And if you happen to know any fit young women or girls (it'd be granddaughters for most on this sight, yes? ) make sure you do chaotic handball drills with them every time you see them.

 

 

Good analysis and agreed.

The other area where the women's game will be inherently at a disadvantage with respect to congestion is the lesser distance that players can achieve, both by hand and foot which will inherently compress the spread of players around stoppges and make it harder to break out into open space.  Not sure how that could be best combatted?  Limited zoning perhaps? (Which I also think could be a good thing for the men's game).  Perhaps cut the feild in half and make it that all defenders can not go past half way, with one player a side to be perminantly positioned in the foward 50 arc...might be reasonably feasible to umpire using GPS tech now.

I'm still at a miss as to why the AFL don't keep pulling back the interchange limit in the mens game.  In my mind, it would force players to pace themselves more and for coaches to revert back to tactics that didn't rely on every player trying to cover the whole feild all the time.

Aussie rules is at it's best when it's a free flowing display of airial and ground ball contests between a limited number of opponents, not a huge pack of players fighting for clearances.  The occational pack is ok IMHO, but when the game starts to be defined more by packs than ball movement is when it looses it's appeal.

Watching yesterday's game on reply now.  Nice first quarter goal to Alisha Newman.

Tonight the Bulldogs delivered a very decent score by any standard:  12.14.86.  In the process they destroyed Carlton whose season is over and booked themselves a GF berth.  Cartlton were woeful - I even started to feel a bit sorry for the players (but not the club or the jumper).

If the AFL wants to complain about low scoring they should go knocking on Carlton's door.  They are the culprit, week after week after week.

On 10/02/2018 at 9:06 AM, rjay said:

Sorry 'Lucifer', you can't compare the 2 games. It's the nature of soccer is it's a low scoring game and that you are on the edge of your seat for the whole game because at any moment the score could come.

The skills are sublime.

You can't relate that to womens football. The nature of Australian football is it's a free flowing and scoring game but despite all their best efforts in the AWFL the scores are low because the skills at this stage are poor.

It’s why I love football and hate soccer. Soccer is like watching grass grow.

It's simplistic to say more scoring makes for better football (or any sport), a close contest is what is most important.

We score quite well. We’re just more chosey about our men ?

This is a really good article on the Bulldogs game style/game plan.  It is clearly successful and high scoring even with key players out (not that Carlton is much opposition (praying that we thrash them in round 6)).  https://www.foxsports.com.au/afl/womens-afl/the-western-bulldogs-ball-movement-and-game-style-is-the-future-of-the-aflw/news-story/d7889aa0c5f4c76838e64859950e5402

"They have a strong quality of player across their 22, and have a game plan every player can work to — rather than just their stars".

We try to control ball movement by taking possession whereas Freo and Collingwood were very good at controlling ball movement by tapping, kicking and sliding it forward.  How often did they move it from the back to the forward line virtually along the ground (because their kicking and handball wasn't good enough to avoid turnovers).  We just don't get to ground level often enough preferring to rely on our considerable skill to win out.

Freo and Pies tactics have kept us to low, percentage killing scores.  We do need to change how we play.

I hope Stinear reads that article.