In NAIDOC Week Courtney unveils some pretty nice boots.
Gillard debuts in the final H&A round, on a mudpit.
A finals appearance… and win!
Ruby got smashed high over the boundary line. A quarter later she came soooo close to football immortality with those two sprints down the wing.
Heartbreak:
But love:
Spectacular EOY write up @theDJR.
The VFLW team should strike a special award for you for your promotion of the team.
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AFLW team creation should and will be a different thread, especially as the team creation options (free agency etc) are revealed.
More relevant here is where the VFLW team will be in 2022 (though it’s hard to do that until we know how much VFLW/AFLW overlap there will be).
Articles are already being written about next year’s AFLW prospects, and it seems pretty safe to say the quality and possibly the depth of top-ups available to us will be down on this past blessed year. In 2021 we had 6 of the top 25 Victorians drafted play for us. It’s worth remembering, however, that even the most present of those (Friswell) played less than half of our games.
On the core team, things look pretty good. Nominally all we have lost is Alana Barba (still waiting on confirmation of that!), and unless the two seasons completely overlap you’d have to think we’re an extremely good chance to get her back for some games.
Both us and Hawthorn are going to be very attractive options next year for a Victorian who missed out on AFLW draft selection: you wouldn’t expect anyone good to walk away, and we should be able to draw some decent prospects in. Players young and old are asking questions about getting to us. Don’t underestimate our leaders’ influence on how others may think, including our captain essentially choosing to delay an AFLW return for one year.
Some rapid thoughts:
- The amount of AFLW/VFLW overlap may determine how much Lauren Ahrens we get.
- Selfish, but Frew getting injured may have stopped her being poached to an AFLW team. She and Nanscawen are arguably our best players, and they’re both still relative newbies to the game… they can improve.
- I don’t know what the story is with Emma Mackay (injured?)
- I worry about our rucks and talls. Nalder is 31, Clifford is about to turn 35. Hopefully Quigley can fix her foot; for us, and for her.
I absolutely see us in finals contention in 2022. We need some size and we need some goal kicking power to take that next step.
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Sneaky buggers snuck in a 2019 shot near the end. Had me confused for a sec.
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Oh yeah, and Georgia Nanscawen is now the first Essendon VFL (modern) or VFLW B&F winner.
Here’s her football career history.
At the age of 26/27 she played her first game of footy: 2 games in WA.
She played 2 games at Norf AFLW.
We picked her up, gave her 13 of 14 games in her first year, and she won our B&F and was placed in the VFLW Team of the Year.
We made her captain. She played 15 games, she won the Player of the Finals, she won the VFLW B&F despite injury stopping her in 3 of 14 games, and she was named captain of the VFLW Team of the Year.
LOL Norf.
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