… but they’re still much better than Footscray was last year. They actually held relatively even against the improved-everywhere-except-for-the-actual-winning-bit Dogs today (6-29 after quarter 1, 14-25 in the last three quarters).
Side note, not relevant to us till round 14: both of the Dogs wins saw them smash the first quarter and then stagnate (vs Norf they went 27-1 and then 27-14 for the remaining three quarters… and Norf were awful in those last three quarters). Looking at today’s game Footscray had a lot of very slight players.
Lauren Jatczak at FF/backup ruck is a big girl (181cm and solid @ 18yo; is from the Northern Knights) – she kicked the first 2 goals vs the Dogs.
Darebin have a lot of legit talls, and they’re not beanpoles. That includes Alyssa Mifsud, a mature mobile six-footer-ish ex-AFLW Demon.
And we know Gogos is an eternal gun. It’s worth noting she is massively kick-heavy (85% of her disposals this year have been kicks), and that saw her kick* Jess Bates off the top of the kicking ladder today.
For those attending, I’m told the VFL app shown location is close enough to correct. So that makes it either the new Tony Sheahan Oval or (less likely) the “Lower Playing Fields”.
The AFL’s article clarifies that Jayda’s injury is to her back.
Port (out of the six on percentage, and playing Geelong) has chosen a bad time to lose FF Fede and FB Barto to illness and injury (and Taylor, now a Melbourne AFLW top-up).
There is certainly no 100% removal of AFLW players across the league.
Darebin have made six changes, including bringing in debutant Stefania Velona and they will warmly welcome back Simone Ruedin, but Bec Goring and Sally Lynch are both huge outs this week.
Since no one asked, there is no singular player #50 or player #100. In both cases (round 2 of 2019 and round 1 this year) there were multiple debutants.
I therefore nominate Nanscawen and Sutton as players #50 and #100.
