Going to take a big big effort for North to win. They look stuffed.

Well done umps.

Ignore a heap of head high tackles in general play then pay a softie directly in front to give the lions a premiership.

1 minute ago, Brownie said:

Well done umps.

Ignore a heap of head high tackles in general play then pay a softie directly in front to give the lions a premiership.

And pay the one they should have let go.

Between maynard flattening brayshaw and davidson playing a violin over an injured player and then both winning flags, karma is officially dead in footy.

30 minutes ago, Bring-Back-Powell said:

Good 3rd quarter by North. awesome inside 50 tackling that have resulted in goals.

Looks like the Brisbane grand final losses (women’s, men’s, BBLW and NRL) are going to continue .

Well that post aged atrociously.

Credit to Brisbane, 4 goals to 0 in the last qtr.

Just saw the result. Congrats to the Lions. they lost some very good players in the trade period but have found replacements and come up with a premiership.

Guess the free cars still not paying off for North.

54 minutes ago, Brownie said:

Well done umps.

Ignore a heap of head high tackles in general play then pay a softie directly in front to give the lions a premiership.

Just more of the integrity the WWE would look down their nose at.

A fitting end to season 2023 for the W comp, just like Collingwood winning the M… glad to see finals in general over and done with.

Bring on season 2024!

North ran out of puff.

Well, who is Dakota?

Watched the whole game and have a little degree of concern. Can't quite put my finger on it, but it needs to be sorted.

Starcevitch congratulated his opposite number, i think.

Clubs do like to beat Brisbane. Fully understand why. That's both Teams .

North could consider themselves very stiff.

 

Congratulations Lions, Grannies are hard to win, 4 goals to zip in the last days it all. Looking 👀 forward to 2024 Men’s and Women’s.❤️💙

I'll probably get caned for this, but I think the standard has gone right down and it is hard to watch.  Over recent years the skill levels have improved a lot, but suddenly they have fallen away. I suspect that increased pressure is why.

2 hours ago, sue said:

I'll probably get caned for this, but I think the standard has gone right down and it is hard to watch.  Over recent years the skill levels have improved a lot, but suddenly they have fallen away. I suspect that increased pressure is why.

I noticed that today. Tackling has come on in the finals which brought us undone this finals campaign as our fantastic run and carry game got smashed through pressure.

Today's game was all about tackling and pressure but you could say the same about our granny win last year. 

The women's game is progressing really well. It's just not in a straight line as coaches finesse their game plans and players adjust.

Give me a close, hard fought grand final any day. Even if it's scrappy.

3 hours ago, sue said:

I'll probably get caned for this, but I think the standard has gone right down and it is hard to watch.  Over recent years the skill levels have improved a lot, but suddenly they have fallen away. I suspect that increased pressure is why.

Exactly. North bring heaps of pressure but bugger-all skill. It was true against us and again today. The women's game is almost unwatchable atm and will remain so until that skill so evident in other years can survive the pressure of battlers like North.

9 hours ago, pitmaster said:

Exactly. North bring heaps of pressure but bugger-all skill. It was true against us and again today. The women's game is almost unwatchable atm and will remain so until that skill so evident in other years can survive the pressure of battlers like North.

Smart coaches bring skilled side down by crowding the stoppages. They aren't interested in the look of the game. Problem is it's a physically draining way to play and they often get run over late in games by more skilled sides.

Problem also- there are too many stoppages.

The umpires should be paying obvious free kicks instead of trying to let the game flow, because it's not flowing.

2 hours ago, GM11 said:

Smart coaches bring skilled side down by crowding the stoppages. They aren't interested in the look of the game. Problem is it's a physically draining way to play and they often get run over late in games by more skilled sides.

Problem also- there are too many stoppages.

The umpires should be paying obvious free kicks instead of trying to let the game flow, because it's not flowing.

Onne thing they could do is pay holding the ball frees when a player takes possession with the clear intention of getting tackled which seems to be very common in the recent matches.

1 hour ago, sue said:

Onne thing they could do is pay holding the ball frees when a player takes possession with the clear intention of getting tackled which seems to be very common in the recent matches.

I cannot see why AFLW rules have to slavishly follow the men's rules. Anti-pack forming rules would be a great addition to AFLW IMO both from a participant and spectator viewpoint.

The free flowing running style of the Demons at their best is a pleasure to watch.

Left field but would allowing players to throw the ball open up the game for example

5 hours ago, GM11 said:

 

Problem also- there are too many stoppages.

The umpires should be paying obvious free kicks instead of trying to let the game flow, because it's not flowing.

You've just identified the fundamental problem with the game at all levels at the moment. The AFL's push to keep the ball moving means free kicks that would have been obvious in earlier eras are now just ignored. 

The could start by banning the "overhead backwards handpass" which is almost invariably a half throw. But if the rules were played as written the game would eventually become cleaner and better to watch as played adapted to the new interpretations.  sorry that should read "rulings".

"Interpretations" is the AFL's word and it's messing up the game.

Edited December 4, 20231 yr by pitmaster

1 hour ago, pitmaster said:

You've just identified the fundamental problem with the game at all levels at the moment. The AFL's push to keep the ball moving means free kicks that would have been obvious in earlier eras are now just ignored. 

The could start by banning the "overhead backwards handpass" which is almost invariably a half throw. But if the rules were played as written the game would eventually become cleaner and better to watch as played adapted to the new interpretations.  sorry that should read "rulings".

"Interpretations" is the AFL's word and it's messing up the game.

Allelujah!  I've been saying this for ages!  There are some tweaks that are needed with the rules, but so much of the "inconsistency" would be eliminated if the umps just umpired by the rules as they are written.  You aren't permitted to hold a player who isn't in possession - so penalise it every time it happens.  As soon as you start "interpreting" you run into trouble.  The "Oh that was tiggy touchwood, she/he/they were hardly held and it shouldn't have been a free" opens up the situation to every ump's individual interpretation of just how much you can hold before you play a free kick.  And if you payed it every time players would stop doing it, except in those relatively rare situations where giving a way a professional free is a better option than not.

I know the general consensus is the less free kicks the better, you don't want a game dominated by frees, but if you started paying them players would stop giving as many away.  What you want is a game with less frees due to less rule infringements, not a game with less frees because umpires are "interpreting" the rules to keep the number of frees down.

In the second AFLW season I was at a match between the Dees and Bris out at Casey, and at a ball up 30 metres out from our goal a Bris player was holding on to Daisy.  One of the non-officiating umpires spotted it, and what did they do - gave the Bris player a warning.  Is that what it says in the rules?  Give a warning?  But that's not the worst of it.  Twenty seconds later there was another ball up in the same spot, and I assume because she been drilled to do it the Bris player instinctively held Daisy again.  Suddenly she froze, and turned to the same umpire, and written all over her face was "Oh s@#t!".  The ump looked directly at her for a couple of seconds, and then just looked away.

Edited December 4, 20231 yr by Craig T

The umpiring standard is so poor that I don't even think about it anymore, as most of the time it affects teams fairly evenly by being an absolute lottery. I do think it's time for some more investment in that area, rather than the league being treated as a testing ground for new umpires, but I won't hold my breath. Clarity and consistency on the rules also required, but that's not exclusive to AFLW.

People tune into a Grand Final and expect a display of the best a league has to offer because realistically it rarely is. And the AFLW at this stage is particularly susceptible to skills breaking down in games like that. Just last year we won a premiership using a highly defensive approach and had to claw our way through an absolute scrapfest to prevail. Enjoyable to us, not so much to neutrals. Taking my red and blue glasses, off the game yesterday had more genuine highlights, even beyond simply more goals being kicked.

Unrelated to the quality of contests, but a point of interest anyway in terms of where the game's at, I had a look at scoring across the seasons, just to see how things have ebbed and flowed with expansion and so on. This season I've definitely enjoyed the greater opportunity for shifts in momentum due to the longer quarters, which often produce late goals, reward fitness and make it harder for mediocre teams to defensively suck time out of games to produce low-scoring wins. Hopefully the latter will see further evolution in game plans in 2024.

On 03/12/2023 at 17:19, WalkingCivilWar said:

A fitting end to season 2023 for the W comp, just like Collingwood winning the M… glad to see finals in general over and done with.

Bring on season 2024!

Precisely.  I'm over 2023.  

18 hours ago, Dees_In_October said:

 

People tune into a Grand Final and expect a display of the best a league has to offer because realistically it rarely is. And the AFLW at this stage is particularly susceptible to skills breaking down in games like that. Just last year we won a premiership using a highly defensive approach and had to claw our way through an absolute scrapfest to prevail. Enjoyable to us, not so much to neutrals. Taking my red and blue glasses, off the game yesterday had more genuine highlights, even beyond simply more goals being kicked.

 

I attribute the quality of last year's GF to the [censored] surface.  It was telling when Melbourne had their training session the day before, and when Alyssa Bannan went to go for a sprint and bounce the ball, it didn't bounce back up, and the first thing Mick Stinear said was don't run and bounce with the ball.  It was just not match ready at that stage, and that affected the playing style of both teams.  Megan Fitzsimon's shot for goal in the dying seconds of the game is evidence of that, if it was a good surface, there's no doubt it would have been a goal - instead it just stopped dead in its tracks.