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Round 3 of the AFL Women’s season was instrumental in shaping what the top two may look like. Here’s my five quick hot takes.
AFLX stole the spotlight, but AFLW stole the show
AFLX undoubtedly took the focus away from women’s footy this weekend. In isolation, it was a fun experiment designed to help introduce our great game to areas that don’t have access to 44 players and a large oval – in that, it worked fine.
Given it was our first looks at men’s footy for the year, it was always going to draw crowds and eyeballs and AFLW was shoved to the backseat while AFLX dominated Thursday and Friday.
While AFLX was fun, it ironically proved the AFL’s memo to be utter trash. A game filled with nothing but Zooper goals, scoring and no passion is fun for a little bit, but pure footy with everything on the line will always take the cake.
Only 11 goals were kicked in Saturday’s AFLW clash between the Crows and Bulldogs, but if you can’t see how that game was better than everything we saw in AFLX combined – and better than a large number of games we saw in last year’s home and away series – then really you’re just being cynical for the sake of being cynical.
The narrative of a defending champion on the ropes, getting its best player back and needing to run the table to make finals is good enough by itself, but add on top of that a Bulldogs side looking to cause a second consecutive interstate upset and ascend into the top two and you have yourself a ball game.
It was an edge-of-your-seat affair where the Bulldogs threw their absolute best at the Crows, but were ultimately bested by Erin Phillips who continues to prove that a lifetime of training in elite sporting environments is what’s going to take these players to the next level over the course of the next five years.
Of course, this game – like most of the best contests across rounds one and two – was on Fox Footy and so the mainstream audience didn’t get to see it. So far they’ve been fed Carlton/Collingwood, Adelaide/Brisbane, Fremantle/Collingwood and Carlton/Brisbane. Frustratingly, all of those games have sucked.
(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Media/Getty Images)
Erin’s coming from a long way back, but can she win another season best and fairest?
The field for the AFLW best and fairest award is wide open with Phillips spending two weeks on the sidelines and injuries to Brianna Davey and Katie Brennan, but the Crows superstar can still win it.
She would’ve picked up three votes against the Bulldogs which would put her at most three votes behind someone like Emma Kearney or Karen Paxman.
Paxman missing half the game in round one against GWS likely cost her votes, while Kearney may be the only player so far to poll in every game. Davey could have two best on ground performances to her name, but obviously will miss the remainder of the season.
Another Bulldog in Ellie Blackburn certainly can’t be ruled out of contention either as she polled well last season and is one of the most dangerous midfielders in the competition.
Then you have more leftfield options like Brisbane midfielder Emily Bates who should have a few votes to her name at this stage and Collingwood star draftee Chloe Molloy who’s dominated in three losses.
Daisy Pearce also still looms as someone you certainly can’t rule out.
(Photo by Mark Brake/Getty Images)
The season is now wide open
Only a few days ago it seemed like the grand final was going to be Melbourne and whoever else slips in, but now we end Round 3 with five teams on two wins and both Adelaide and GWS still alive even though they’re 1-2.
With Phillips back, the Crows could surge into finals contention with percentage being quite easy to build in the low scoring competition. GWS has looked fantastic in two games this year, but it’d take a perfect run for them. Collingwood fans, sorry – you’re done.
The Demons are still the team to beat, but Brisbane sits on top of the ladder and has three quite winnable games remaining. The Lions will face Melbourne in Round 5 and that could prove to be the defining game of the season. These two would be the favourites at this stage.
The Western Bulldogs also sit on two wins, but injuries to Isabel Huntington and potentially another serious ankle injury for Katie Brennan could derail their promising season. In a similar boat is the Blues who don’t look threatening enough without Brianna Davey.
Fremantle just slayed Melbourne and has two winnable games in Perth left, but they’ll have to beat one of Brisbane or Adelaide away from home if they want a chance of finishing top two.
We’re at the halfway stage of the season and both top two spots are totally up for grabs. If only they’d expanded to a top four with a mini-finals series to reward a couple more teams.
(AAP Image/Glenn Hunt)
Carlton is in major strife
Aside from Melbourne, Carlton was the team most people – including the AFLW team captains – thought was going to be making a Grand Final and it’s still difficult to work out why.
They’ve lost Davey and that obviously has crippled them, but even with Davey, they were never in the same league as Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane who – funnily enough – were the teams they couldn’t beat last year.
They brought in Tayla Harris and Nicola Stevens over the off-season and while they’ve both been good so far this season, it’d be like Adelaide selling the farm for Tom Lynch when they already have Taylor Walker, Josh Jenkins, Mitch McGovern and… Tom Lynch.
Sure, he’ll add to your team, but was it really the big splash you needed to make? Carlton was already the equal best scoring team in the competition last year with the Crows.
Last season, the Blues were comfortably beaten through the midfield most weeks. The best players in the competition ran all over them and they simply couldn’t get their hands on enough clean footy when it mattered most.
This led to them being trapped in opposition forward halves for large chunks of quarters. They ranked sixth in the competition for uncontested possessions in 2017 and it was clearly the area they needed to improve, but instead, they now find themselves ranked a distant last and going backwards.
Beyond Davey, who Carlton never planned on using in the midfield anyway for some inexplicable reason, they bank on a group of talented players who are all very similar types.
Players like the Hosking twins, Shae Audley, Sophie Li, Katie Loynes and Lauren Brazzale who love contested ball and tackling, but don’t use it particularly well and struggle on the outside.
Add in former-captain Lauren Arnell who can’t even make the team this year and you have a serious problem.
Carlton’s best midfielder in 2017 who got on the outside of stoppages and provided some much-needed speed was Nat Exon – who they traded for Harris.
Alarmingly – outside of the injured Davey – Carlton doesn’t have a player ranked inside the top 40 for uncontested possessions. Sarah Hosking sits at 41 with an average of 5.7 per game.
This was an issue people looking closely could see from a mile away and one the coaching staff has not addressed.
It’s all well and good to have an amazing duo up forward, but if you can’t get them the ball in any situation other than a hack kick forward, then what’s the point?
(AAP Image/Joe Castro)
The memo had no effect whatsoever
You seriously have to wonder what on Earth Nicole Livingstone and Steven Hocking were thinking with their ‘guidelines’. We saw a game on Saturday night where Carlton and Brisbane both had numbers behind the ball all game and nothing was done about it. This led to a slow, low scoring contest that some might call boring and others might call, you know, two teams who want to win.
Then we had Sunday afternoon’s thrilling affair between GWS and Collingwood were the game was stopped multiple times because the umpire was waiting for the teams to have the right structures.
It was awkward.
The umpire just stood there waiting for Collingwood and GWS to roll their players up onto the wing in order to create their precious 5-6-5 structure.
Unfortunately, the moment Collingwood’s loose player was brought up to the wing and the umpire bounced the ball, she returned straight back to her position behind the play. So the play was stopped, halting the momentum of the game and literally nothing was achieved.
Not to mention the Fremantle/Melbourne game was littered with players behind the ball as well. This really needs to be worked out as it’s a PR mess at this stage.
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