Hoops

NH - Basketballers in the AFLW

Not a troll. Many ppl even rusted on AFL fans are like wtf at this whole AFLW and females participating when netball has traditionally partnered footy. Where is the men's pro netball league?

I think this is a classic "do not feed the troll" situation.

^ ignorant comment, these a high percentage of non-hetero or Bi girls in all the womens elite teams, Olympic or otherwise. if its more or less than the general population I neither know or care.

I do know that there are more than a few gay men playing in the national AFL , so what ???

Anon you don't get it - it's for dykes not regular girls.

Our precious flowers should not be subjected to such brutality. I don't know what men were thinking allowing this to happen. Clearly they have been brainwashed by feminists.

What is the thought process going on inside of parent's heads to setup this savage sport to be played by girls? This obsession with eggball has jumped the shark.

Women started playing it?

I'm not sure why you think this is so complicated.

Moreso how tf did it become a sport for women in the first place

That young girls play aussie rules

It's mind boggling that junior sports exist?

Still can't believe girls play this at junior level (I assume so since there is a pro league now). Mind boggling.

Ahh, ok. I was thinking more along the lines of injustices perpetrated by the AFL/W.

Where the ratings go, the media will follow and jump on board. The AFL put out a shiny new thing, marketed the hell out of it, and the people went for it. Despite the product being pretty poor compared to the WNBL. It certainly proved the value of good promotion.

The relative media attention the leagues receive, compared to the quality of the players.

I haven't made my mind up about whether I think it has been bad for the WNBL (in some aspects it definitely has, but I think there could be positives to come out of it as well), but I don't see what injustice has occurred.
Care to elaborate?

It genuinely is an injustice, but it's toward the WNBL rather than the AFLM (it's obviously not an injustice to the AFL, being part of it).

Not a football fan anyway, but much as with the BBL taking over as Ten/One's major summer sport, I just can't support it out of principle.

It's also garbage. That doesn't help.

Erin was great yet again.
Which in a way is not a great look for the AFLW - that a basketballer can come in with a couple of months prep and dominate a football league. But it's certainly testament to Erin's sporting prowess.


Oh, and yes - everyone be very afraid of all the feminists! LOL ... these parasitic women with their $8500 pay packets for the season have come to drain the cash-strapped AFL of its last couple of dollars. It's really a huge injustice.

It's already at ridiculous levels when will it end as they've already jumped the shark.

feminists have a lot of power at present - IMO the glass ceiling has been smashed and expect more womens issues / rights / advocacy to be at the forefront of our media , funding , lifestyles over the upcoming years.

What a joke league.

Erin Phillips co-captains the premiers and wins B.O.G. in the grand final.

I think its good they have a league, there should be some form of top league for women, but the thing i absolutely hate is all the hype it gets.

I only managed to watch about a quarter of a 2 games before walking away because its so average. Yet the media hype it as the best thing to happen to the AFL. They claim they have 'sell outs' even though its a free event lol. Somehow they ignore the fact that kicking one goal in a game is terrible even though a men's side would cop it from the media. They showed the dockers only goal (their one highlight) on the news then said how it shows freo are a highly rated force to be reckoned with in the league... like seriously lol.

Yes the leagues standard will improve over time, but even at its peak it still won't be amazing. The VFL, WAFL etc don't get great crowds or media attention and yet the quality of their games are 100x better than the women's, and probably always will be.

All this hype and its only been one weekend. In a few weeks or years time when the hype dies down, the crowds will too. I think people are expecting the current interest to be the norm and not the exception. Like Andy said people won't want to go watch that long term, and certainly won't ever want to pay for it. I think in a year or so it will go back down to the level of the WBBL and still having some small relevance and very slight interest, but not get any of the media attention and hype it does now.

No, it's just depressing. Something finally overtook the BBL for that title; at least the BBL is a quality product (the WA team not being shit helps), even if it did directly replace the NBL as Ten's summer sport offering.

I watched the Freo game and the Adelaide game. Was not impressed at all.

^ Andy gets the thumbs up from me for those comments. Hope he is ready to cop some misguided hate now.

I'm a lifelong footy fan and fully supportive of the AFLW, and I enthusiastically watched 3 of the games over the weekend. Love all the hype it generated. Exciting stuff, and great for women's sport.

But it's also a very unrefined product. Which is understandable, since a background of many years playing the sport has not been possible for these women. But it is what it is. The skills and decision-making on display were pretty bad.
Then I went to a Lynx game and watched some world class players doing their thing, in a nice stadium that was fairly sparsely populated, because it wasn't being pumped up by a league whose revenue is measured in hundreds of million$.

The explosion of the AFLW is both exciting and depressing.

https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/coach-not-sold-on-hype-of-new-league-ng-b88376561z

Tippet and Cambage would be pretty good to watch

Oh yes, because men perving at sweaty women in tight shorts is really modern and progressive.

^ cmon mate...
Get with the times.

AWFL

Says it all really

Erin Phillips one of the best on ground for the Crows today in their big win over GWS.

Yeah, the female Nic Nat certainly looks tiny next to the real one.
I doubt it will matter much though. The ruck position seems pretty redundant from what I've seen of the AFLW so far. The skills aren't at the level where a quality ruck will be a big factor.

Really surprised reading the paper today to see Freo's rucks are only 179-180cm. Still fairly tall, but I would have thought they'd be able to find some 188cm+ ex basketball or something to try and covert to a ruckman (ruckwoman? lol)

She's killing it now. Huge influence on the game from the forward pocket. Got the kicking boots on now too. Commentators are loving her.

Busy start for Erin, helping set up the first goal, and milking a couple of frees for herself (definitely some basketball nous showing through there ;) ... but missed both regulation shots

I watched the Darcy Vescio spectacular..

Credit where it's due though ... massive crowd in! Gates closed. They reckon ~ 18k
Alison Downie dwarfs most of the other players. I guess that shouldn't surprise me.

All this talk about what a historic day this is ... it's a bit rich.

It's not like there haven't been national women's sports leagues in this country for decades!

Yup, absolutely all over the radio and TV here in Victoria, yet hardly any mention of the NBL double header tonight at all.

If there is any doubt whether Victoria is a Football State, it has been removed without remorse.

Good on them, I hope the games are fun and the girls do great, but this is a semi-pro league at best and the NBL is our best level possible, even the tennis, cricket and soccer gets a decent run on general TV news, bloody disgraceful really...

So the inaugural season kicks off tonight.
Freo Dockers (who play @ Western Bulldogs tomorrow) have at least 3 basketballers in their team so I'm definitely going to have a look at them.
And of course there's no way I'm missing Erin Phillips's debut either - tomorrow at Thebarton Oval, 4:35pm SA time.

Oh no doubt.
AFL has a much bigger fan base than basketball, and just from my personal experience I'd guess that its proportion of female fans is higher than basketball's too. That degree of popularity/awareness surely influences which sport kids get into in the first place once there is a full pathway in place.
AFL is absolutely a threat, and it has the money to be an even bigger threat if it so chooses. Whether it *really* wants to remains to be seen, but I'm guessing it does, because it's a huge area of potential growth for itself as a business.

She's a special case though. Most girls aren't raised by a dad who's a star AFL player.

As the aflw grows its a definite threat to aussie women's basketball. I think i read comments from Phillips saying she would have played footy all along had there been a pro league, and that's someone that has made it to the highest levels of hoops. Something to watch

Conti too young - need to be 18

Netball has been hit a lot harder than basketball from what I gather.

AFl's agenda is simple - blocking move on basketball and women's sport in general.

Has only attracted second their talent at the moment - has been or never quite will be. Very good players, so impacts on the depth in women's basketball.

Conti lol

Oh, and you're quite right that Stacey never saw a 3 point opportunity she didn't like, so yeah I can definitely picture her having a ping at the big sticks from 40 out. "Lower the eyes, Stacey!" might be a regular one from the Freo runner ;)
I think she could do ok. No idea of her footy skills but she's got the physique for it and with the Lynx last season she certainly didn't shy away from contact.

Downie is an interesting one. I wasn't aware that she already had been playing footy for a few years until yesterday when Roy Ward retweeted this article from 2011
http://www.theage.com.au/sport/basketball/downies-passion-bounces-back-after-kicking-it-in-a-different-sport-20111204-1odhj.html

I haven't seen any mention of Conti playing, but yeah it's players like her that are the concern I guess. In her case her ceiling is high and there's an existing pathway to be able to play professionally, which remains to be seen with footy.
Because this season is only 2 months, everyone can have a crack without it being too disruptive of whatever else they're doing. Will be interesting to see how it goes and what the AFL does with it after that though.

Was thinking this too yesterday Luuuuc.
I saw Downie was going to go across to AFL, but at 32 she would have only had a couple of years left at the top level anyway. My question with the draft was how many of the young talent (like Conti) will decide to move across and perhaps be lost to basketball ? Of the young ones drafted, how many were WNBL calibre athletes that we may lose from our game?

Conti going to play?

Ruby Schleicher (Collingwood) has represented WA at U16 and U18 Nationals and played SBL for Willeton.
I wonder if Stacey Barr likes having a shot for goal as much as she likes shooting a 3 point shot in basketball,which she does very well.If so,I wouldn't be expecting to get too many handballs or passes in the Dockers forward line.

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