AFLW Rd 1: Carlton vs Collingwood at Ikon Park

[kruddler]

Kruddler
If you take the swimming example I am talking about 16-18 year old girls that looked much fitter than a lot of players out there last night, volleyball.. same thing. In the case of volleyball these are girls (and boys) growing up playing a sport without any huge following in Australia and they have made sacrifices even as teens to get up early and train, to train late a night, to miss out on a lot of normal teen activities in the pursuit of their sport.

The sport has to have a reasonable skill level Kruddler regardless of how long they have been around and I was addressing the fact the players are not full time and stating neither are most Olympic athletes, yet they do everything they possibly can to sacrifice to make that top.

There is a top of the heap in AFLW now and that is great, so there is every reason for players to make all the right decisions. Are you in fact trying to imply that most of the players out there had what would be considered an athletes physique? I mean it has been pretty well 2 years from conception until now, so that is a LOT of time to train. You can see amazing transformations in even 1 year.. So.. were those players last night in 'peak' fitness? If you think so, then we have wildly different expectations of peak fitness.

I watched on the net it was I think Nicole Livingstone and she literally could hardly commentate it was embarrassing. I love Nicole, she was a sensational Australian athlete and always interviewed well as a swimmer, but if that was her last night.. she sounded almost panicked when asked questions. Literally no idea.

If you don't think there are issues about last night and the skill level that need addressing, all power to you. To me.. I think it is a long way from the quality required and from what I seen last night, probably the only 2 players that looked like footballers where the Chiocci and that Molloy girl.

The expectations when you want to get paid and you want to play in front of big crowds and also be nationally televised are wildly different to the expectations playing Saturday afternoon football, whether male or female.

If you were a broadcaster, how much would you pay for the rights to the women's game right now? Knowing you had to sustain the the interest over a number of years to get the sponsors to advertise etc... How much would you pay?

For someone to invest now (other than the AFL) there needs to be payback now. A broadcaster isn't going to sign on for 3-5 years not knowing if anyone will be watching it then.

So either the product is progressing nicely and it will just naturally eventually get there, or the the ladies/girls that are playing the game need to take it upon themselves to improve their skills/fitness and provide a game we can't turn off. I personally think the 1st is a bit head in the sand and nowhere near the approach required.

Surely the girls need to be able to perform the fundamental skills at a high level

Let me put it to you this way...
NBA. Elite athletes, skills the best in the world. Games? Generally boring as bat $h!t to me. Half the games have the result sorted halfway through the game. The other half generally come down to the last 5 minutes making the rest of the game irrelevant up to that point. 82 games each for the regular season. A win (or loss) on any given night means SFA in the scheme of things. Generally little emotion attached.

AFLW....not elite athletes, skills needing work. Games? Hard fought contests that could go either way more often than not due to the low scoring involved.
Only 7 games a year, so every game is precious. Emotion involved from the players is greater than you see in AFL.

Yes, skills do need some work, but i'm not watching games to see elite skills. I'm watching the games to see these girls give there all to get a win. NOT for the money, for the pure love of the game.

You want to talk elite athletes and body shapes/sizes.
I'll give you 2 names and let you fill in the blanks.
Greg Williams
Tony Lockett

Don't forget that some of these girls had never even played a game of football until they donned their AFLW jumpers.
A 2 second search showed me that there are former athletes from far and wide playing AFLW today.
Basketball, Hockey, Netball, Athletics, Volleyball, Beach volleyball, Soccer...and i'm sure there are many more i'm missing too.

Another one for ya, what is bigger in america? NFL or college football?? Which one has the better athletes? Perhaps the emotions involved play a bigger part in the game than just seeing the best of the best?