AFLW 2024 - Round 10 - Chat, game threads, injury lists, team lineups and more.
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First half of last season our defence was performing very well as a team. With a couple new faces in there it's going to take a bit of time but confident that we can make it work. Weller and Powell returning will make a big difference, they add some run and more importantly skill to the back half.
This is such a tough competition. Many of our competitors for those spots in the lower half of the eight have recruited impressively over the summer to address their deficiencies. Making the eight will be a major achievement should we do it. If I was a betting man I’d take 2024 over 2023 as our first finals appearance. One more year into our core, plus a couple of the fabled A Grade mature recruits will be a huge catalyst.
I'm so pissed Rankine shot through
Weller and Powell are great returns but they are coming off massive injuries.If they stay fit it's realistically a couple of months before they're match fit and doing what we expect from them
If we have just one of them available for round one (probably Powell) then it's going to make a big difference because we won't be forced to play someone like DMac in the backline. The combination of Powell and Long can give us that skill and run out of the backline and it may even allow us to play a slightly smaller line up with 191cm Farrar/Constable being used as a third tall instead of Graham. Then we'll start to get a few more defenders back like Weller and Andrew a few rounds into the season and we should be in a much better position going forward.
- Izak Rankine
King impacts the game more than Rankine. It's a net gain for us.
Watching rankine at the Crows is going to hurt at times but I just remind myself that netted us bailey Humphrey. Early days but reckon he's a future star.
Not sure about that, Casboult and Chol all but nullified the loss of King last year I felt. With King returning, probably for Casboult, how many extra goals are we gonna get? Probably fewer contested marks and probably a worse option for the long bomb which is our go to. Rankine on the other hand created goals out of nothing, we don't have anyone that can replace that. Adding to that we should probably cool our expectations on King returning from injury, I'd expect Rankine to kick more goals than King this year. So without internal improvement, I'd say we are running at a net loss in 2023.
Agreed, Humphrey will be a star. But I think he's a target up forward/midfielder, and when we have 4 or 5 key talls, that crumbing small fwd role becomes even more important to our structure.
Ballard A grade!
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Casboult faded late in the season when we needed him most. He kicked just 2 goals in the last 4 games and 3 of those games were against 17th West Coast, 13th Hawthorn and 18th North Melbourne. You could argue if Casboult had maintained his form in the first half of the season then we'd have made the finals last year. I think we're far less likely to see a fade out like that from Ben King who seems to be primed physically as opposed to Casboult who is on the decline. I guess we'll see how many goals Rankine kicks this year but I get feeling Adelaide want to use him more in the midfield than we did so I actually disagree and think King will kick more goals if both stay fit all year.
Didn't Ballard lead the league for intercept marks for most of last season?
You'd be wrong
We missed the finals by 2 wins and 6%. Considering he kicked 21 goals in the first half of the year and 14 goals in the second half of the year as well as 3 of those final 11 games we lost by 7 points or less, I would argue 7 extra goals from Casboult could have made the difference in terms of our finals aspirations. We were a lot closer to playing finals last year than some people would like to admit.
Izak was that small forward who really worries the opposition defenders making the forward line more dangerous. Unless someone steps up, he will be a huge loss.
We haven't seen rosas yet this year, hopefully he can really step up. Otherwise kitchen sink at pickett.
Agree, we were closer to finals more than most people believe. 2W 5L was far from ideal start but we should never have lost to Collingwood at home. That was heart breaker, season defining loss. Hawks in Tas was another one. We were parked in our forward half all time in the last quarter but just could not score in windy conditions, some terrible misses from Chol, Luko. We played great game against Lions, were ahead at 3/4 time then Ballard went down and we faded. Close loss to Port was another great game with an unlucky outcome.
Definitely acknowledge he's a good interceptor
Probably a reflection of who his opponent is more than anything. They make sure he isn't on the big marking forward. He is slowly getting bigger and stronger each year though and he will continue to develop his game. That stat reads well for Collins as he generally does get the bigger stronger opponents.
