The debut of the AFL’s long-awaited
national women’s competition seems as good an opportunity as any to get this
blog up and running again.
“The anticipation is building” spaketh
DANGERFIELD! as he conducted a pre-recorded pre-match interview with the face
of the new league, Magpies ponta-de-lança
Moana Hope. This was the culmination of a summer of hype about teh wimminz
finally getting their own league and what a great moment in Australian sporting
history and and…
And then…yeah.
No-one can pretend that this was
high-quality footy. Eight goals and 57 points were scored, a rate of
goal-scoring and point-scoring lower than any season of the men’s VFL/AFL.
There were fifty stoppages, 41 ball-ups and nine boundary throw-ins, a higher
per-minute rate than the 2015 AFL season. And let’s not forget that the women’s
match was played sixteen-a-side.
The usual suspects will trot out the usual excuses:
these are semi-professional players, they haven’t had access to the same
coaching and sports science facilities as the men, they aren’t used to the size
4 Sherrin having used a size 4.5 in their state competitions. That’s all well
and good, and the standard of play will improve, but this was not an attractive
start to history being made.
The opening passage of play looked more
like rugby union than Australian football. It took the players five ball-ups
and 95 seconds of regulation time to get the ball out of the centre square, and
the first clean possession was shanked out of bounds on the full. Lacking the
speed or the strength of male players, it was difficult for anyone to run or
kick the ball away from the congestion. Collingwood scored the historic first
behind (Steph Chiocchi) and first goal (Jasmine Garner), but only four behinds
thereafter, with Hope particularly ineffective at centre half-forward.
The story of the night was Carlton forward
Darcy Vescio, who snagged four majors, two in the first quarter and one each in
the second and third. She outscored the entire bianconeri team, outshone Hope who finished with one behind to her
name, and etched her name and her 5’6” figure into the history books.
There isn’t much more to say about this
match. Princes Park was full, with another two thousand locked out: when we
ignore the gender of the players, and view them as semi-professionals playing
footy on a suburban ground, this isn’t surprising. Melbourne is full of
purist-traditionalist footy fans who a) preferred the VFL/AFL when it was
played by less fit and less tactically aware players and b) preferred the
VFL/AFL when it was played at dingy suburban grounds. Gillon McLachlan has
pulled off a masterstroke here.
Carlton 7.4.46 (Vescio 4, Arnell,
Davey, Jakobsson) – Collingwood 1.5.11
(Garner)
Ball-ups: Q1: 17, Q2: 8, Q3: 13, Q4: 3;
total stoppages: Q1: 19, Q2: 9, Q3, 16, Q4: 6.
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