Jenna McCormick’s Matildas debut sends shockwaves through AFL

Fevola won it a few years back and he is old whats that got to do with it. Who do you think are the biggest kickers now? Nathan Lyon got 60m as welll. That should been big news as well as Tayla Harris. The lack of coverage suggests there is a lot of sensitivity with the media with their AFL connections regards this. No doubt kicking skills in AFL have been heading south for a while. A bloke I knew at University told about the 70m drop kicks they could do in WA. Now they cant drop kick, cant kick long, but have a whole load of big mouth lackeys talking them up.

the chance to play for your country is something the aussie rules people can never offer any of their players and the chance to play in europe for a leading EPL club or a La Liga or serie A club for both male and female soccer players is something the aussie rules people can never offer their male or female players .Look at Sam Kerr signed by Chelsea will live and play football in London #dreamjob .The pinnacle of any player is to play for their country only football code that offers that for both male and female players is the round ball code .

and has often played at NPLW level during winter as well so has a strong footballing background.

Stop making stuff up.

His breakout game was the one decent game he's ever played - he's the worst player in the league, and it staggers me that they persist with him.

Well put. The gaelic footballers can transition over because they're already used to the element of dropping the ball onto their foot rather than kicking it off the ground. Kids have to play all their life to have any chance of being a professional soccer player because there's so much competition.

The Optus game was the first ever game at the new stadium - people went so they could say they were at the first game ever there. It's just more propaganda to make the crowd sound better than it actually is. The fact is that attendance to women's sports it terrible the world over; people just aren't interested in women's sports because they're slow and poorly skilled.

It’s incredibly scrappy and players are constantly going off for a rest . It’s also a game that’s lost the effectiveness of the smaller players. League are union are not quite as similar as you portray . It’s much harder to adapt to rugby union unless you are an outside bsck . The swap from union to league is an easier transition as their are no rucks and mauls .

Running in straight lines will get him killed . Unfortunately the pot shot about lack of skill in league is disappointing, but it’s definitely more skilful in the modern era , then 20 years ago Rugby union has another diverse range of skills and .... soccer is definitely the hardest game to master the skills under pressure.

Cox is still the worst player in the game. Hunt and Folau were both terrible at Aussie Rules, and both got a game purely for bums on seats; neither were close to being good footballers. People with natural ability can adapt it to more than one game; I don't understand why people are surprised by code-hoppers. I've no doubt an AFL player could play league if he trained for it. League players are naturally built differently from AFL players - they train specifically for the sport they play. An AFL player could bulk up, run in straight lines and lose some skill to play League no worries at all.

Tayla Harris came third against old blokes and blokes who can't kick far; just another thing that's manipulated to make women look good. The big kicks in the game can kick a good 20m further than that; I can still kick that far and I'm almost 40.

You are so biased with your narrative...….you conveniently forgot to mention that entry to AFLW games is free......also, the conservative figures for registered soccer players is around 1.83 million around the nation

You're kidding? Association football is probably the hardest sport of all to try and conquer from late teens onwards, in fact if you haven't played regular soccer/football since you were 8 or 9 years old you will struggle to reach professional football status...…..oh, and Jenny McCormick played soccer/football successfully before going to AFL

#normalozperson You sell it short......The AFL is a little more expansive in Australia - at least there's Brisbane/Gold Coast and Sydney as well.

Its a choice between going to Melbourne or London or Europe/US if your good enough to play whereas in AFL it is Melbourne, Adelaide or Perth

As S K has has said on several occasions "you don't get the immense thrill of representing your country playing AFL". McCormick performed exceptionally well for a first timer in the Matildas and managed her robust qualities without fouling players all over the park. I hope more female Sherrin Ballers come over to Football. Not so much the blokes, they seem to me too full of their own importance.

#Randy In part you're right and also wrong. Yep - 18 aside - big oval. What there is out there is a lot of roles and requirements. So - not everyone has to be a super skilled athlete to full-fill their role. However - the nature of the game is that it only takes one person not making the right defensive positioning to allow the 'overlap/loose man' and you get fully exposed. An awful lot of AFL scoring is done on the 'rebound' - forced turnovers via defensive pressure/positioning and then quick breaks into open territory before the opposition can set up their defensive structures. The game is actually more structured than it looks - especially on TV.....best place to really pick it up is low level 3 or level 2 at most grounds. Poor defence in League is far more obvious and in your face and seen quite easily on tele. That and they have more in-game stoppages so more time to replay these sorts of events. That avoiding being exposed defensively applied to the big guys from other sports like Mason Cox and Mike Pyke who had to learn that side of it from early on. Most commentators never thought they'd get as far as they did - - rated them each the worst player in the comp when they were first seen. Both had the physical and mental attributes. In one way - - if you can't as a coaching group manage to turn a player with all the right attributes, fundamental skill sets and a burning desire to succeed - if you can't turn that player into something decent then as a coaching group you might want to question your techniques. RL and RU do 'code conversions' all the time. The mechanical skills are very similar. The key for the converters is the state of mind - the game play/situational awareness. Heck even in cricket the T20 vs Test cricket - very similar mechanical skills however there are things you do in T20 that you just don't consider in Test cricket. The mindset is the key. That all comes down to coaching and training. That's perhaps why we see examples like McCormick, and examples like Ash Barty with he jump into cricket and back to tennis. The very good performers make it look far easier than it is.

I reckon the AFL should ditch their preseason comp and just go straight into their league season. Expand it and make it start in early March and finish in late October. Who cares what Cricket Australia thinks, just go for it. Might as well go hard and upset CA too. Then we'd see how popular cricket really is because the crowds for Shield and Australia A tour matches are non-existant, only the test matches and T20 big bash get crowds. They tried expanding the big bash into February but it didn't work. I reckon AFL should go hard and expand their season. Stuff the cricket.

Josh an AFL player wouldnt waste his time with league. They have Olympic gold medals to amass. Can you imagine an AFL player stepping out of their AFL bubble world and trying another sport lol. It will never happen.

Haha - ouch!