Game Day AFLW Round 5, 2024: West Coast vs GWS

[Kegs15]

Roberts clearly our best, what a superstar. Lewis also very good, but some poor disposal mixed in with the sublime.

Drennan typically prolific but wasted it a lot.

Thomas and the Wakfers ultra reliable. Schilling again just such a smart defender. Wasn't Prior leaving her out?

Lots of good efforts from role players like Octavia, Western and Bakker.

Lyons has more than leagfrogged Lakay, but I hope she starts to be a bit cleaner with the footy.

Gibson and Roux are such shit lords, going to be fun watching them up forward together.

Well done girls and Daisy!

Agree with all these points. Zakfer no longer feels like 'Lauren's sister' on our list - super reliable, does the boring things well, will only get better etc. In fairness has maybe had more consistency in her role than Lauren but still, credit to her.

Roux looks dangerous (and shitlordy) and yeah, role players aren't looking like passengers out there, they're winning their moments and bringing really good energy.

We do need Franklin to really come on as that set-and-forget key forward option, without her Huntington ate up those kicks to the hotspot. A consistent aerial presence in that area was missing today.

Cleaver again was the lowlight, maybe needs to get the boxing gloves on and go a few rounds with Gibbo, Lewis or Schilling before each training session. Just feels like that type who grew up being better than any of her opposition at sport automatically, and now that her opponents are good enough to beat her doesn't naturally fight and scrap and halve contests. Some more fight from her plz.

 

[Ilkka Sinisalo]

It was a state based draft when Ella was drafted, not national, meaning clubs could only access players within their respective state, or players that nominated their state. If it was a national draft she definitely would have gone top three, but the clubs that had the top three picks didn’t have access to her.

Ah okay, thanks. Well with all the things they stuffed up the first two years it’s good that they managed to not stuff up drafting her.

 

[UseR2006]

Ah okay, thanks. Well with all the things they stuffed up the first two years it’s good that they managed to not stuff up drafting her.

The drafting I don't think was ever an issue.
Always had enough talent. You can see just by ex-eagle players in other squads now being decent players.
But it's nice for a change to have a coach that knows what they are doing for the womens team and getting good efforts from the talent that is on the list.

 

[RanaNaved]

Good to see the women doing so well. Weird to see a WC team with more wins than losses

 

[AlphaSheep]

Whatever Daisy's doing differently in the team's setup and structure, it's working amazingly, they just look so much more organised and confident than before.

Daisy's also making great use of Ella, resting her forward in patches, then throwing her back on the ball just when our midfield starts to get into trouble without her. Everyone seems to know what their role is, and that confidence will only get stronger the longer Daisy coaches.

Ella's now finally turning into the dominant force we saw at WAFLW level, but in the AFLW. So for the first time, the team will have a top-5 freak like Conti, Garner or Rowbottom, which will give everyone a big lift.

Roxy did a bunch of good things she won't get a stat for, which means when Franklin comes back, the forward line will have more options than it's ever had. And when MacDonald gets back, we'll have two serious tall defenders (her and Zoe), plus Schilling, Swanson, Smith and Thomas, who are all properly good, especially Thomas.

Midfield remains the concern, GWS dominates for stretches, it only really works when Ella's up there. Drennan was a massive get for us, her and Ella give us some clean hands and speed. But Lyons has been crazy good in the ruck, which then frees Lackfer to go forward (hasn't worked yet, but give it time) and suddenly we're overflowing with ruck options.

I like Swanson down back because it makes our backline seriously tough, but also improves the quality of disposal in our midfield (sorry Swanny). I reckon the next step, maybe next year, will be Rentsch to the middle, given our backline's so strong now. Add back Rowley and Kavanagh, and that's some proper midfield depth.

And then we still have find a spot for Annabel Johnson in the backline next year too. Maybe all these good defenders will even free someone up to go forward next year. Maybe Thomas?

So many years of bad coaches has definitely caused me to underestimate how strong the list is. They're much better than we knew, they just needed Daisy to let them show it.

 

[MeltMan]

Sorry did that say 229 ranking points for Ella Roberts?

just watched the highlights and that was a pretty amusing pop up. make her your AFLW fantasy captain holy shit

 

[Livin1989]

Whatever Daisy's doing differently in the team's setup and structure, it's working amazingly, they just look so much more organised and confident than before.

Daisy's also making great use of Ella, resting her forward in patches, then throwing her back on the ball just when our midfield starts to get into trouble without her. Everyone seems to know what their role is, and that confidence will only get stronger the longer Daisy coaches.

Ella's now finally turning into the dominant force we saw at WAFLW level, but in the AFLW. So for the first time, the team will have a top-5 freak like Conti, Garner or Rowbottom, which will give everyone a big lift.

Roxy did a bunch of good things she won't get a stat for, which means when Franklin comes back, the forward line will have more options than it's ever had. And when MacDonald gets back, we'll have two serious tall defenders (her and Zoe), plus Schilling, Swanson, Smith and Thomas, who are all properly good, especially Thomas.

Midfield remains the concern, GWS dominates for stretches, it only really works when Ella's up there. Drennan was a massive get for us, her and Ella give us some clean hands and speed. But Lyons has been crazy good in the ruck, which then frees Lackfer to go forward (hasn't worked yet, but give it time) and suddenly we're overflowing with ruck options.

I like Swanson down back because it makes our backline seriously tough, but also improves the quality of disposal in our midfield (sorry Swanny). I reckon the next step, maybe next year, will be Rentsch to the middle, given our backline's so strong now. Add back Rowley and Kavanagh, and that's some proper midfield depth.

And then we still have find a spot for Annabel Johnson in the backline next year too. Maybe all these good defenders will even free someone up to go forward next year. Maybe Thomas?

So many years of bad coaches has definitely caused me to underestimate how strong the list is. They're much better than we knew, they just needed Daisy to let them show it.

Agree with nearly all of this the really encouraging thing is that most of our emerging talent is still so young and raw that we still don't know some of their potential.

 

[Livin1989]

Agree with all these points. Zakfer no longer feels like 'Lauren's sister' on our list - super reliable, does the boring things well, will only get better etc. In fairness has maybe had more consistency in her role than Lauren but still, credit to her.

Roux looks dangerous (and shitlordy) and yeah, role players aren't looking like passengers out there, they're winning their moments and bringing really good energy.

We do need Franklin to really come on as that set-and-forget key forward option, without her Huntington ate up those kicks to the hotspot. A consistent aerial presence in that area was missing today.

Cleaver again was the lowlight, maybe needs to get the boxing gloves on and go a few rounds with Gibbo, Lewis or Schilling before each training session. Just feels like that type who grew up being better than any of her opposition at sport automatically, and now that her opponents are good enough to beat her doesn't naturally fight and scrap and halve contests. Some more fight from her plz.

RE: CLEAVER

Definitely needs a few rockets fired up here arse in terms of commitment..... She's probably the only one out there that isn't going balls to the wall in terms of buy in and 1%ers. Frustrating to watch because her latent potential is very high. I think trying to split between two elite codes may indeed be her Achilles in the end. Choose Netty OR Footy girlie.

Hopefully our injury woes are for the most part are over, but they do present a chance to blood and unearth new talent/depth around the ground. Bakker, Lyons and Harken have been solid tbh...that being said, I want to see Kavanagh and Rowley develop plzzzz.

 

[AlphaSheep]

RE: CLEAVER

Definitely needs a few rockets fired up here arse in terms of commitment..... She's probably the only one out there that isn't going balls to the wall in terms of buy in and 1%ers. Frustrating to watch because her latent potential is very high. I think trying to split between two elite codes may indeed be her Achilles in the end. Choose Netty OR Footy girlie.

Hopefully our injury woes are for the most part are over, but they do present a chance to blood and unearth new talent/depth around the ground. Bakker, Lyons and Harken have been solid tbh...that being said, I want to see Kavanagh and Rowley develop plzzzz.

I don't think Georgie's not trying, I think she's uncertain and self-doubting because she just hasn't put in the hours the others have. But she still gets a game, because great athletes at that size are rare. She was hitting some kicks later in the game and looked pretty decent, I think she just needs time. Of course, if she keeps playing netball all through the football preseason, there will come a time when some other player gets onto the roster who'll be picked ahead of her. But I doubt she'll make the choice until she absolutely has to.

I can't see Bakker or Lyons surviving the next few years. They're good, but we've got so many better injured players coming back, and then the next draft picks will all be better than them too. Lyons has been amazing, so she could hang around. Or if not, some other club will probably pick her up.

 

[WCEswift]

people need to take it easy on Cleaver, shes 18 and a baby giraffe, 18 year old boy draftees are lucky to get a touch as a kpd in the WAFL

 

[random260]

I want cleaver to make it. From photos she seems like a mad eagles fan when younger. She also seems like a good culture builder

 

[FKASC]

people need to take it easy on Cleaver, shes 18 and a baby giraffe, 18 year old boy draftees are lucky to get a touch as a kpd in the WAFL

Cadman still has a long way to go, but a good example of how a young tall can look absolutely invisible and then (at times) completely dominant within a pretty short period of time

 

[Kegs15]

I don't think Georgie's not trying, I think she's uncertain and self-doubting because she just hasn't put in the hours the others have. But she still gets a game, because great athletes at that size are rare. She was hitting some kicks later in the game and looked pretty decent, I think she just needs time. Of course, if she keeps playing netball all through the football preseason, there will come a time when some other player gets onto the roster who'll be picked ahead of her. But I doubt she'll make the choice until she absolutely has to.

people need to take it easy on Cleaver, shes 18 and a baby giraffe, 18 year old boy draftees are lucky to get a touch as a kpd in the WAFL

I definitely don't mean to be hanging any shit on her as, yeah, young KPPs of course are going to go missing, be inconsistent and it's pretty universal that a step up means bigger, stronger opponents thus an adjustment period for those in marking roles.

I couldn't care less at this stage about things like contested marks, disposals, goals if she's swung forward etc. Those things should come if she has the talent and application and the latter we don't really know and can't judge her on this early.

I think more what I'd like to see as a benchmark for this season is her opponent rarely winning a contest 100%. Schilling and Jack Williams in the mens are great examples of this in that they don't necessarily win every contest, but when they lose them it's a 40-60 or 30-70, they manage to get a little hand in there, a jumper tug, pressure on the kick, bring it to ground etc.

Cleaver to me just seems like one of those juniors that was dominant enough to rely on winning every time and that being enough, but with the step up this no longer being the case. Don't think this means she's not trying, far from it, but when she loses at the moment she loses 100%, her opponent takes the grab, runs away from her or gets a clear kick while it looks like Cleaver is still processing the original contest loss.

Would love to see us as a team back her in to grow into those dominant aspects she likely has but for now encourage her to scrap, scrag, niggle, push, do the things that players who've never been the best in the team have done since juniors. Get her involved in the game through her opponent having a generally hard time, rather than her needing to take an elite intercept mark etc.

 

[RookiePick]

Seeing how a bit of top talent and a new voice with a clear message can reinvigorate a group...promising signs for the men's program.

Great to see the girls enjoying their footy after enduring some grim times.