AFLW Round 1 of the 2023 AFL Women's season

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Body left and was one of the best small forwards and Jesse Wardlaw was best tall forward. You might need to brush up on your AFLW knowledge.
Neither player finished in Brisbane's top 10 B&F count last season. And, like Bates, we are yet to see if they can be adequately replaced.

I reckon WA prodigy Courtney Hodder will definitely take her game up another level this season for the Lions though.
 
Can't help but agree with the criticism of Ikon Park though. A crowd of 8k at a boutique venue, and half the game looks like it's played in an empty high school gym.

I don't know exactly what further plans they have, but I'm hoping it'll involve moving the playing surface 10m east, then filling in the resulting space on the western end with seating.

Obviously you'd lose most of the bottom tier on the eastern end, which just means the new front row of the Legends Stand will be elevated like at Perth Stadium. Not only would it liven up the dead half of the ground, it'd also improve the viewing angles for people sitting in the Gardiner Stand (once it's refurbished).

Here's my before and after (just pretend it's an up-to-date photo with the southern wing's big blue box and new seats completed):

ikonparksep2023a.jpg
 

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The woman's game was great three years ago when all women were at a certain standard now due to Gils greed there are girls out there that are so far below the required standard it's not funny. It's really quite sad, the pub I was at turned the channel over to the NRL as everyone was commenting on how bad it was

Disagree. The standard now is so far ahead of the standard in 2020 it's not funny.
 
Melbourne have famously not lost players to expansion, and Collingwood were wooden-spooners a few years ago (averaged 23 points, which they had surpassed by HT last night). Pretty good example of how people are just thoughtlessly trotting out the "standard has dropped" line.

Reminds me of when the players were being criticised in the first season for--remember this big no no--celebrating too much!

Btw on a list of the 44 AFLW Round 1 games played so far, last night is 2nd for most points scored. Keeping in mind R1 is typically the lowest-scoring round of the season, seems like it's worth waiting a bit to see how the latest rules play out before thinking about more changes.
 
Hard to get a handle on it, but I think the adjustments to Time-on and rotations will be a positive for scoring and lesson the impact of the athletic running defenders against good footballers late in the games.
Well, I hope so anyway…

Dees look good.
 
They have completed destroyed the game by going to 18 teams, they would have being better by doing it by city like the big bash , also need to.play on rugby league grounds. Some of the players would struggle to get a kick in under 13 Boys as they have diluted the product so much
That is ABSOLUTE RUBBISH.

For example the under 15 girls at my local club played our under 14 boys in a praccy match and absolutely smashed them. Both teams made their respective Grand Finals and the u15 girls won the flag.

The standard of AFLW is light years ahead of where it was in season 1, and it will only get better as the current crop of under 16 and under 18 girls around the country (who have been playing the game since Auskick) graduate to professional footy.
 
Think I say it every year, but... enough of the interviews during play, for god's sake. Vescio lining up for goal, commentators aren't even paying attention because they're busy asking Jamie Stanton a boring question.
 
Love what I’m seeing from this Carlton side.

Not the biggest, strongest, fastest or most skilled, but effort and pressure is a great leveler.

Bring that every week and you’ll give yourself a chance.

You’ll also pretty quickly endear yourself to a supporter base that has dropped off in recent years for a number of reasons.
 
Bohanna usually only plays this bad against top 8 sides. 17 points down, not necessarily over for the Suns yet (a game against West Coast last year springs to mind) but they haven't even looked like they want it as much as Carlton so far.
 
Wouldn't have said it at the start of the day, but it turned out to be a more important game to win for Carlton, given the lead they had. Gold Coast at least got something to take from it with the better 4th quarter, and it's probably not a bad thing for them to get the reality check.

Moody had her quietest game in about 4 years, so some upside there for the Blues (as long as it's not injury related). And Dal Pos, standing in as captain, had a career-high 19 disposals (equalling R5 v Melbourne in 2017, her AA year).
 

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Was gonna say. Just not enough contributors for the Bulldogs and, sheesh, that little passage of Lamb being surrounded by like 8 Cats jumpers at an I50 stoppage sums it up.

Was also gonna say Emma King's only been wearing 60 in every season of AFLW, which would be 2 higher than McFarlane's 58 if my math is correct.
 
Didn't have time to debrief the showdown, but not much to be said other than to state the obvious about Niamh Kelly. What a game, speed was off tap. Certainly saw patches of that at West Coast, but a whole new level today, and the numbers really only told part of the story.

Port Adelaide the best loser of the round so far. The intent was there and the forward-line worked pretty well together (Tahau should've had 3 goals, one way or another).
 
Didn't have time to debrief the showdown, but not much to be said other than to state the obvious about Niamh Kelly. What a game, speed was off tap. Certainly saw patches of that at West Coast, but a whole new level today, and the numbers really only told part of the story.

Port Adelaide the best loser of the round so far. The intent was there and the forward-line worked pretty well together (Tahau should've had 3 goals, one way or another).

Kelly was fantastic today, looked twice the player she did last year.

Port will upset a few teams this year, I reckon. Two fantastic mids in Ewings and Dowrick, some genuine forward targets in Houghton, Saint, Phillips and Tahau, a great young ruck in Scholz, and a pretty good backline.
 
Toogood with 23 and 2 tonight, easily a career best performance. That'd be enough to prove the difference on most days, but in a match where Hawthorn's forwards were non-existent, mah gawd is that some stark contrast.

Really don't think Goddard did anywhere near enough to get Fellows, Gilroy, Perkins (who had 2 touches until the last few minutes) and Bodey involved in the game.
 
Toogood with 23 and 2 tonight, easily a career best performance. That'd be enough to prove the difference on most days, but in a match where Hawthorn's forwards were non-existent, mah gawd is that some stark contrast.

Really don't think Goddard did anywhere near enough to get Fellows, Gilroy, Perkins (who had 2 touches until the last few minutes) and Bodey involved in the game.
Same forward issues as last year. They sit back and wait rather than actually trying to create space and be creative.
They did come out of their shells late, but may have been because the bombers stopped.

Fellows has all the tools to be a good half forward, but can never seem to put it all together. Goddard is ruthless to those outside her favourites, so think talia may not get much of a look after today's howler (Dom carbone got desisted based on 1 howler in Rd 10 last yr)
 
Same forward issues as last year. They sit back and wait rather than actually trying to create space and be creative.
They did come out of their shells late, but may have been because the bombers stopped.
I thought the issue was the lack of a decent key forward. At least partially addressed last year via Duffin. Not addressed at all tonight, whereas the opposing captain took 5 contested marks.

Fellows has all the tools to be a good half forward, but can never seem to put it all together. Goddard is ruthless to those outside her favourites, so think talia may not get much of a look after today's howler (Dom carbone got desisted based on 1 howler in Rd 10 last yr)
If Fellows were to get dropped, I'd say it's less about the fact she made a mistake, and more because it was the only thing she did all game (same could be said of Carbone last year, but replace "dropped" with "delisted" and "game" with "season").
 

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AFLW Round 1 of the 2023 AFL Women's season

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