AFLW R9 - Carlton vs Gold Coast @Ikon - Sun 5:10pm

[crashlander]

Good to have the girls win, and win well. Pity we were as ordinary as we were at the start.

[kruddler]

Good to have the girls win, and win well. Pity we were as ordinary as we were at the start.

R1 vs Collingwood (loss by 19) - 6th
R2 vs Geelong (win by 14) - 12th
R3 vs Brisbane (loss by 35) - 3rd
R4 vs Kangas (loss by 30) - 4th
R5 vs Adelaide (loss by 39) - 1st
R6 vs Fremantle (loss by 42) - 5th
R7 vs St. Kilda (win by 48) - 13th
R8 vs GWS (win by 18) - 11th
R9 vs Gold Coast (win by 30) - 9th
R10 vs Melbourne (? ? ?) - 2nd

We are 8th.

That sets a very clear picture if you ask me.
We are not a top 6 side. Our only losses have come against the top 6 sides.
We have beaten everyone below us that we've played.

If we had've played West Coast and Richmond instead of 2 of the top 6 sides, and won like we'd be expected too, we'd be in the finals.

With such a (potentially) uneven draw, these things are bound to happen.
I think they did the wrong thing by getting rid of the conferences. When you cannot play everyone, its the fairest way.

[Mav]

Every team in the 6 (bar 1) has thrashed us. And the only 1 that hasn't thrashed us is Melbourne and we play them in the last game. If we can beat them, it would be fair to think we could have made it if we'd started better. If not, it would be pretty hard to complain about missing finals. 

[tonyo]

Every team in the 6 (bar 1) has thrashed us. And the only 1 that hasn't thrashed us is Melbourne and we play them in the last game. If we can beat them, it would be fair to think we could have made it if we'd started better. If not, it would be pretty hard to complain about missing finals. 

Don't think we will even be in the hunt next week - but I would love to know what the plan is to get under Tayla's skin...... and if pushed, she is likely to uncork one.

[Mav]

The AFLW is a different competition to the men's comp. I know a woman footy player (not at AFLW or even VFLW level) who is a big supporter of women's footy and Carlton's AFLW team too. Her sentiment appears to be pretty typical of AFLW supporters: they'd prefer to see the competition become stronger more than their own team winning. She was happy to see Harris go elsewhere and bore her absolutely no ill for doing so. AFLW supporters are happy to see players from their own team move to other teams if that makes the competition stronger. This is a bit foreign to us as we see those players as traitors. But I think you'll find there's very little antipathy towards Tayla Harris from Carlton players or the bulk of the supporters of our AFLW team.

If the last game were a do-or-die effort for us to get in the finals, maybe some players would do what it takes to put Harris off her game. But when we're fighting it out for a position outside the top 6, I don't think they'd go there, especially if all they manage to do is to provoke her into getting suspended.   

[kruddler]

Every team in the 6 (bar 1) has thrashed us. And the only 1 that hasn't thrashed us is Melbourne and we play them in the last game. If we can beat them, it would be fair to think we could have made it if we'd started better. If not, it would be pretty hard to complain about missing finals. 

I'm not complaining about missing finals, we wouldn't win one of we did. I'm just highlighting the inequality in the fixture. That is, a team that has been largely thrashed by finals teams could have actually made it if the fixture was slightly different. To counteract that, the conference system that was in place solves that issue. This is doubley highlighted by the fact that the afl was basically hand-picking games/opponents at a moments notice due to covid.

TBH, we ended up better than I expected us off the back of our abysmal off-season.

[Mav]

I don't disagree with that. My post was completely written before I saw your post after pressing submit and the system invited me to review it. I thought they were pretty consistent but different enough to continue with the post. As it turned out, we had a tough draw.

Given more teams are coming into the AFLW comp, they really need to do something to reduce the inequalities in the draw, especially if they're not going to play more than 10 rounds.

[LP]

Did anyone see the incident Prespakis was sanctioned for?

I vaguely recall a bit of a push and shove, but if it's the incident that I recall then the sanctions must surely go both ways as the Prespakis was retaliating to being hit.