I reckon the skill level will start to ramp up significantly in maybe 3-4 years. The explosion in the girls junior pathways, girls TAC Cup teams etc has been staggering since AFLW became a thing. There’s a lot more girls trying out the game now, and they’re getting much, much better development. Once you start getting talented players from those development pathways into the comp is when you’ll start to notice a big improvement in skills.
Edit: but you won’t see skills comparable to the men’s afl until we start getting girls coming into the AFLW who’ve been on elite talent identification tracks since they were 10, and now earn a wage that allows them to practice footy as a full-time job. Cos that’s what it takes to get to afl standard skills.
2017 Grand Finalists the Bears and Crows are sooooooo much better (many can kick and almost all can mark). Still, a grand total of 1.2.8 for the first quarter.
Suggests the talent is (already) spread too thin.
The umpiring is arguably of a worse standard than the playing.
From my perspective I see an AFL trying to cash in on a push better women’s sports coverage in the media.
The trouble is that the infrastructure, professionalism, and therefore skill/quality is literally decades away from being tv ready and really ready for aflw to be a professional sport.
They’ll end up driving people away if they push too hard.
Exactly my thoughts. Happy that my daughter now has greater opportunities to play a game she enjoys, but live telecasting these games so early on is a bit rich.
Being starved of football for 4 months was enough to make me flick it on Friday night, but gee after 10-15mins, it may have been on in the back ground but we were paying absolutely no attention.
When my wife is telling me she’s seen better skills at under 13 boys games you know you’re struggling.
My two cents. They should have tried to keep the teams state based, one across each of NSW, SA, VIC, TAS, QLD & WA.
Select the best talent in each state. And consolidate and harness the skills of the women whilst developing a state based supporter group.
I was channel surfing last night and on NITV they were showing the Darwin Buffettes and Waratah’s. (I came in at the start of the 3rd quarter)
Some had really good skills and some not so good, The kicking is probably what let’s the game down.
If they had a team like you say formed for each state, the better skilled players would make it more watchable, while the less skilled could hone their skills (in local league) to become more polished to play at a higher level.
Although I did enjoy watching mainly for the endeavour which was nearly as good as the guy’s.
Now that you mention it, yep, lots more allowances made by umpire/s. Last night couple of high tackles let go and some handballs, one of which was a blatant throwing the ball, play on called.
