Roar Rookie
Joined March 2016
2.3k
Views
3
Published
3
Comments
Published
Comments
Content warning: this is an AFLW article. As required by AFL media rules, your browser will prevent you from leaving this page or reading…
Okay, so we all know the Hawks are fortunate to be 4-2; apart from the grand final replay, they haven't been very good. The…
I have read many impassioned and intelligent articles on this site about how to solve various problems from player welfare to the quality of…
I wonder if this is the first AFLW “best of” team on the Roar? I have been watching as much AFLW as I can and with the skills improving about 50% from week to week it’s getting better and better. As a Hawks fan I’ve had to adopt a team this season, so I’ve picked the Dogs and Lions just to hedge my bets.
I’d have Tex as a forward rather than in the Ruck – personally I think Gemma Houghton from Freo is the best of the rucks so far. The other bulldog I’d have in the team is Hannah Scott, who’s just brutal out there defensively and is one of the valuable few who can bomb the ball 50m+.
I’d also put Kaitlyn Ashmore in the best team, she’s been unbelievable in the two and bit Brisbane games I’ve been able to watch.
And Mo Hope’s problem is that Collingwood is way too predictable going forward. They need to at least entertain some other options so that the opposition can’t just triple team Mo and shut them down that way.
Who's dominated and who's underwhelmed in AFLW?
I always think the worst problems with these systems are at the bottom end rather than the top. I think it comes from the misunderstanding that the top pick is a reward – it’s not a reward, it’s an equalisation tool.
If you make the Number 1 pick a prize and make 13-18th play for picks, you are effectively condemning the bottom 2 or 3 teams to move in there permanently by putting one of their hopes for improvement (high picks) out of reach.
The whole hyperventilation about tanking strikes me as short-term thinking. They seem to want to incentivise the bottom teams to think short term (win a couple of meaningless games, perhaps by playing 27-31 year olds who aren’t part of your long term success) rather than long term (play young kids or players with potential who will maybe make you better next year and the years after that).
No player or team deliberately tries to lose – teams just pick squads with younger players rather than has-beens, or they send players for surgery instead of forcing them to play with injuries. I can’t see either of these outcomes as being inherently bad if you think long term, even if it means some games at the ends of seasons are poorer quality.
The AFL's terrible idea that won’t die
Big fan of yours, Josh, but must disagree with a couple of statements as a Hawks fan:
“a shock miss in 2017”
The Hawks won three flags in a row, then went out in straight sets in 2016. Every Hawk fan in the country knew that finally, after defying equalisation for several years longer that you should be able to, we’d been pulled back into the “up and down” cycle that teams are meant to endure.
Stars either left (Mitchell, Lewis, Lake, Gibson, Hale, Hill) or were aging/past their best/injured (Hodge, Birchall, Rioli, Roughead – and dare I say it, Burgoyne). After finishing up the top for so long, which means years of drafts starting in the 20s and 30s, it’s inevitable that you can’t fill a list with talent the same way that a team drafting top-10 can. Clarko-worship aside, we’re not idiots (and I’ll defend my Clarko-worship to the grave).
“a bitter taste in their mouths”
I don’t know any Hawks fans who aren’t pleased with this season, poor finals performances notwithstanding. Reality is that we were within a couple of goals, late into the last quarter, of two teams (Richmond and Melbourne) with a ton more talent on their lists that us.
Maybe we got a bit over-excited about the “two year rebuild” with Tom Mitchell and Jaeger; but I don’t think any of us really genuinely thought the Hawks were a flag chance.
Anyway, we’re in the “participation trophy” phase of AFL flags now. We let the Bulldogs and Tigers have a go because it’d been so long; let’s let Melbourne have one this year, and then we can go back to proper grown-up clubs winning them again.
Five talking points from the AFL semi-finals