Well, despite being screwed out of the win in the closing seconds by the ump (i.e. standard practice) this was the only good news story for the EFC this round. As I’ve detailed, we’ve lost a lot of senior and key players this year… but we look to have done very well in remedying that.
Casey/Melbourne have long had an AFLW team, and today they had just one or two extra outstanding players who dragged the rest of their mob to relevance – including Jakobsson and the 185cm 19yo Bridie Winbanks, the latter being on our list last year… They were middling last year but still won five times as many games as us, including beating us 47-21 (17 scoring shots to 6).
We were good today, no doubt on that. The backline below were all at least solid – Hicks and Heil continue to improve on last year and are the kinds who give you that Fletcher sense of calm when they’re in a contest.
B: 7. K. Hicks, 11. M. Warburton, 29. C. Laan
HB: 18. K. Heil, 27. A. Morcom, 21. K. McFadyen
The centreline was more hit and miss: Ugle and Svarc only stepped up in the second half, but when they did they were great. Svarc has SERIOUS pace. Bullas felt like the captain in the first half. Nalder is still a seriously unco ruck who nonetheless gets her hand to it very regularly.
EDIT: Amend the above, Ugle was great in the second quarter.
Shae Audley is tiny but also has good pace and got it a lot.
Veteran Hockeyroo 43 Georgia Nanscawen was really good forward and mid, and that’s before considering she only started playing footy in 2018! Looks a bit like a trim Mackrill (minus the overt aggro). Dunno if Norf AFLW were sane in cutting her after one season.
EDIT: per the replay, Nanscawen got a STACK of the ball. Her kicking is a bit wonky but she still has decent range. Moves with a low centre of gravity, like Wanganeen. Was our BOG, and second only to Casey’s effin’ Jakobsson.
I have no stats as I write this; might change some opinions when I see them, especially given about half the team were new to me.
25 Lori Stepnell looks to be a dangerous forward for us. Physical and skilled.
The returning DeMatteo kicked three goals, including two in a minute in the third quarter.
Both Tiwi girls had injury scares but returned to the ground. Very often they were our sole players staying in the forward fifty, and if we could have gotten it there quicker I’m pretty sure they would have done some damage. This is where having a couple big kickers in the team makes a huge difference, allowing you to skip all the slog and break it open: Casey had exactly that today. Moreen was the better of the two and showed some nous in the ruck despite her slight frame.
Saundry was a perfectly cromulent replacement for Morecroft in the back line. She’s not tall for a KPD but she has that strong base that will shift most opponents off-balance.
In all, much better than I expected and I’m happy to watch the replay (see the first post of the thread to do that). Not true for the men’s games…