Women's AFL

I umpire girls football a lot i can tell you that the standard is usually much worse i have done the tac cup games well rep football and pretty much laughed at it such ■■■■ skill

I umpire girls football a lot i can tell you that the standard is usually much worse i have done the tac cup games well rep football and pretty much laughed at it such ■■■■ skill

I will preface my statement by saying I was a runner/assistant coach for a div 2 side a few years back and still watch occasionally - yeah basically the skill level really nose dives. Bit of a chicken or the egg for the AFL though. Do they fund grassroots and raise the standard from the bottom up? Or fund the top level and bank on the standard trickling down?
As it is, they’ve already accelerated the women’s comp from a 2020 start because of the women’s big bash cricket (although I’ve recently discovered my source, while well placed to get this info, can be somewhat liberal with the truth).
Will be interesting to see how it plays out, though I really do think they (AFL) need to throw resources at coaches of teams of primary school ages.
I mentioned this somewhere (might have been here) but currently the gender skill gap in footy is greater than any other sport I’ve seen. Arguably the female players should be able to do everything as well as the guys minus about 10-15% in speed, height, kicking distance etc

I umpire girls football a lot i can tell you that the standard is usually much worse i have done the tac cup games well rep football and pretty much laughed at it such ■■■■ skill

I will preface my statement by saying I was a runner/assistant coach for a div 2 side a few years back and still watch occasionally - yeah basically the skill level really nose dives. Bit of a chicken or the egg for the AFL though. Do they fund grassroots and raise the standard from the bottom up? Or fund the top level and bank on the standard trickling down?
As it is, they’ve already accelerated the women’s comp from a 2020 start because of the women’s big bash cricket (although I’ve recently discovered my source, while well placed to get this info, can be somewhat liberal with the truth).
Will be interesting to see how it plays out, though I really do think they (AFL) need to throw resources at coaches of teams of primary school ages

Copy iceland, made a concerted effort to make every soccer coach from grass roots upwards to be properly acredited. Did wonders for them they made it out of the euros group stages.

I umpire girls football a lot i can tell you that the standard is usually much worse i have done the tac cup games well rep football and pretty much laughed at it such ■■■■ skill

I will preface my statement by saying I was a runner/assistant coach for a div 2 side a few years back and still watch occasionally - yeah basically the skill level really nose dives. Bit of a chicken or the egg for the AFL though. Do they fund grassroots and raise the standard from the bottom up? Or fund the top level and bank on the standard trickling down?
As it is, they’ve already accelerated the women’s comp from a 2020 start because of the women’s big bash cricket (although I’ve recently discovered my source, while well placed to get this info, can be somewhat liberal with the truth).
Will be interesting to see how it plays out, though I really do think they (AFL) need to throw resources at coaches of teams of primary school ages

Copy iceland, made a concerted effort to make every soccer coach from grass roots upwards to be properly acredited. Did wonders for them they made it out of the euros group stages.

We could go Russia where all their junior ice hockey coaches have gone to uni and got degrees in Ice Hockey coaches lol (srsly guys coaching U8s get about $55,000AU per annum)

Great game, love watching it.

Wish the farkhead commentators would stop being so patronising.

And did you hear P.Jackson???
"… they’re special, aren’t they??.. "

Do you think women commentators would make a difference? (Said in a serious manner)

My gut feel is no, it probably wouldn’t. They would try to copy the whole male bullshit thing.

I could have this totally wrong as I didn’t watch a lot, but were those 2 teams like all star teams? As in the best of the best, so when there’s like 6 teams the skill level would be watered down even more?

If that’s the case I can’t see it being a great success, but that’s just my opinion and I’m a nobody.

There was an ugly patch in the third where every kick was an Ashby, but overall it was an excellent demonstration that lesser skills do not necessarily mean a less entertaining match. Loved the physicality.

I felt sorry for the little Melbourne full-back.

I could have this totally wrong as I didn't watch a lot, but were those 2 teams like all star teams? As in the best of the best, so when there's like 6 teams the skill level would be watered down even more?

If that’s the case I can’t see it being a great success, but that’s just my opinion and I’m a nobody.

Thought this too. Skills were okay in patches but how will it hold up with another 100 players to run a full competition?

I guess the skills only get better by making the whole league more professional, but it’s going to be rough for awhile.

Don’t forget, blokes footy has been around for 140 years. Bit of a head start to develop skills.

There was an ugly patch in the third where every kick was an Ashby, but overall it was an excellent demonstration that lesser skills do not necessarily mean a less entertaining match. Loved the physicality.

I felt sorry for the little Melbourne full-back.

Harsh but lol

Don't forget, blokes footy has been around for 140 years. Bit of a head start to develop skills.

One of the girls who had a shot on goal (and didn’t make the distance from 30) was said to be a multiple time all Australian and premiership player?

I enjoyed it

Don't forget, blokes footy has been around for 140 years. Bit of a head start to develop skills.

One of the girls who had a shot on goal (and didn’t make the distance from 30) was said to be a multiple time all Australian and premiership player?

For balance - did you see the handful of goals from outside 50m?
Thought it was stunning.

Don't forget, blokes footy has been around for 140 years. Bit of a head start to develop skills.

One of the girls who had a shot on goal (and didn’t make the distance from 30) was said to be a multiple time all Australian and premiership player?

For balance - did you see the handful of goals from outside 50m?
Thought it was stunning.

There was a mix of good and bad for sure, like any game.

Thought it was great. It reminded me of International rules in that the girls didnt slow play very often. Lots of running and quick movement. It was “mark” and immediately play on (quite often when they shouldnt have) and there were actually some pretty big, high speed hits as a result.

Obviously these were the best 40-odd players. How it looks next year when they need 300 players is a different question.

Thought it was great. It reminded me of International rules in that the girls didnt slow play very often. Lots of running and quick movement. It was "mark" and immediately play on (quite often when they shouldnt have) and there were actually some pretty big, high speed hits as a result.

Obviously these were the best 40-odd players. How it looks next year when they need 300 players is a different question.

We should also keep in mind (as mentioned above somewhere) that these are not full-time professional footballers. That day will come, when female players will be 100% dedicated to the game, be 100% fit, filtered through a long process from childhood, etc.

We really dropped the ball as a club not getting in on the ground floor on this.

Never seen a game of women’s football before. Must admit seemed a bit strange at first, so just watched the match as a footy match rather than knowing they were women.

Thought they were pretty good, skills better than I thought they would be and they went in fairly hard, some of the kicks/passes were very nice.

Will be interesting once the comp starts to see how much interest will be shown. Also think it would be easier to follow them if you have your team to support. Will take a look at the comp, however for me would have more of an interest if there was a Bombers team or someone I knew was playing in a team.

(will say however not disappointed we don’t have a team, as I think we have other things to sort prior to thinking about adding a women’s team)

Great game, love watching it.

Wish the farkhead commentators would stop being so patronising.

And did you hear P.Jackson???
"… they’re special, aren’t they??.. "

Do you think women commentators would make a difference? (Said in a serious manner)

My gut feel is no, it probably wouldn’t. They would try to copy the whole male bullshit thing.

They’d either be extremely attractive and give lip service or just extremely competent at their job. I like kelli underwood on radio but when she was on ten she had lower herself to walls, Quartermaine and co standard and came off as ■■■■■■ useless.
Id love Caro to come on one day and actually call a game. With Eddie.

Thought it was great. It reminded me of International rules in that the girls didnt slow play very often. Lots of running and quick movement. It was "mark" and immediately play on (quite often when they shouldnt have) and there were actually some pretty big, high speed hits as a result.

Obviously these were the best 40-odd players. How it looks next year when they need 300 players is a different question.

We should also keep in mind (as mentioned above somewhere) that these are not full-time professional footballers. That day will come, when female players will be 100% dedicated to the game, be 100% fit, filtered through a long process from childhood, etc.

Will that ever happen though?
I honestly can’t see it getting past where the VFL is now (short of the AFL running a massive loss on it over a very long period of time).
Nothing against the girls as they should be encouraged to play at the highest level possible, just don’t think we’ll ever see the interest or $$$ turnover required for them to be full time
18 clubs with 40 players at $60,000 annual salary is $43 million. And that’s not including support staff, coaches, admin etc. that money has to come from somewhere for it to be sustainable