Craig T

Not defending Hawthorn in any way, but Brisbane, the defending champion, played two of the top eight this year. 17 games or stop pretending the AFL is serious about women's football.

Possibly the issue is that coming off our "compressed" schedule we still haven't been give a full week between matches. Three games in eleven days is about what very team copped at some point, but then we had a six day break to Richmond then five days to Hawthorn. Why, of all teams, schedule us to play on the Thursday?

When you have only ten or eleven rounds in a competition with 18 teams you are always going to get an unbalanced fixture, even if the organizers try to keep things balanced. The problem we have with the AFLW is that the organizers don't care. In fact it is even worse than that, as they are happy to take advantage of the short season to actively rig the draw to try to give the impression of a balanced competition. I guess the key is to remember that the AFL is not running a sporting competition. From their perspective they are managing a product. Shameful.

We haven't helped ourselves by letting Richmond kick the last 3.2 this week and us beating St. Kilda by 1.8 last week. We could easily be only 7% behind Essendon now instead of 18%. But we had so much percentage to make up that it will probably come down to us having to beat Hawthorn and Collingwood and hope that Richmond beats Essendon next week. If that happens we are in regardless of percentage. Freo and Port should be able to keep ahead of us given their draw, though I suppose there is a chance the Suns at home might beat Port now they've found some form. But we just have to win both matches!

Yep, that's how I see it. We have a much, much tougher draw than those we are up against for a final eight spot. And that's not even considering the injuries we've copped. But then it bodes well for next year - Harris, A. Mackin and Beasley back, games into Gall and Campbell this year, and a number of our key players still 25 and under.

If we win all three remaining H&A games and finish 7-4 we'd have to be very unlucky to miss the finals, regardless of percentage. If we go 6-5 with a poor percentage I suspect we'll almost certainly miss out.

A four day break is bad, but at some stage every team is copping it. What makes it worse for us is that it is after an interstate game at night. That really cuts into recovery time. No need for it to be that way, but constructing a balanced and fair draw doesn't even register as an issue with the AFL.

Part of the problem is the fact that too many people rate the Brownlow way too highly. When it first started, pre-radio and television, and more limited coverage in the print media, I understand it was the only competition best and fairest award. As such it meant something. Then, as the coverage of the game expanded dramatically in the 60s and 70s and there were awards left right and centre, the then VFL decided to promote it as it was their B&F and wanted it to still stand as the peak individual award. So they let Channel 7 televise it, build the hype, and make it into the big palaver it is today. As someone once said, would we take it so seriously if it wasn't called the Brownlow, but "The Umpires Award"? 🤣

Spot on. Good ol' Ronald Dale made this point decades ago......

You're memory is fine, it was Greg Wells pipped by Len Thompson. Wells was my fav player, which is showing my age somewhat. 😆 You're also right about the way the votes were counted - rigged for maximum dramatic effect.

I recall many years ago a journalist (too many years ago to remember who) telling the story of how after a game where Peter Hudson had kicked 16 the journo said to the umpire that he knew he couldn't tell him who he gave the Brownlow votes to, but that obviously Huddo would have got the three. The ump replied that as didn't give any votes to Hudson he felt it was Ok to say so (questionable). The journo asked gobsmacked how could he not give him a vote given he kicked 16. The ump replied that he thought he'd only kicked about four. 🙄

I have no doubt that in most games the bounce of the ball will favour one team, but today we've been killed.

GWS thought they were home...taken the foot off the pedal......

Yep, hot to start, then a lightning storm, then very cold and wet heading home on PT after a loss. Not a great introduction to our AFLW team, but they've more than made up for it since then. 😃

Yep, looked at the public transport, which is always a slog at the best of times, but due to my current location in the northern suburbs, plus the train replacement buses from Dandenong to Cranbourne, I will need to leave home no later than 7:10am. 🙄