Yes, not sure of the numbers but the crowds for the women's games look to be less than a third of the crowds for the men's games. It's true that the women's games are (inevitably) slower paced and lower skilled and (hopefully not inevitably) the comp is more uneven. It occurs to me that once the AFLW season actually starts the comp may end up even more uneven than it has been, with more AFLW players not selected for the senior team playing VFLW finals - hope not as that would be to our disadvantage. Either way, not trying to convince anyone else to be interested. It will always draw fewer spectators than the men's comp.
Very true, NorthPort, that the umpiring didn't help matters. Manton's best games this season have come playing higher up the ground, but I'm also not sure where he fits best. Inconsistency has always been something of a problem for him. If Penry could be a tall forward option, that would allow us to play all of him, Grant, and a mature ruck recruit in the side next season, so it seems worth a shot. That might push Manton out of the side unless he could reinvent himself as a defender or a full-time wing. [Edit: not sure who'd come out of defence though - he'd have to turn out to be very good in defence to push out any of our current defenders.] If he's a wing, Stubbings could then join the midfield rotation. If Polkinghorne spends more time in the midfield, perhaps Rankin then stays at halfback, though he's so versatile I doubt he'd actually spend his whole career there. Rankin on the wing is probably a better option than Manton even though Manton's done some good work there. Perhaps Downie, Rankin, and Manton could be the wing rotation if Hobbs/Hird/Green/Stubbings/Polkinghorne is the midfield rotation, with Tovey continuing to split his time between midfield and forward.
Gahan has been putting together an impressive season. It's been great to see him get a relatively clean run at it after an injury-interrupted season last year. I've been impressed with Van Es as well.
Yeah, that was a great comeback. Particularly in the second half, the team really increased the pressure and intensity and kept it up to the point that Richmond finally weren't able to go with us. It was quite a turnaround, with the first quarter being one of the worst we've played all season and the second half being one of our best performances. There were some brilliant acts of desperation like Tom Graham charging into our forward 50 at about 19:30 in the third quarter to spoil a Richmond player's making attempt, which led to Alessio recovering the ball and handballing to Tonelli for a goal. [Edit: rewatched that bit, it was also Graham who recovered the ground ball after the spoil and got it to Alessio who got to Tonelli.] Every player in the side ended up playing hard and contributing something to the win.
Hobbs, Gahan, Rudd, Stubbings, and Baldwin all deserve credit for standing up in the otherwise bad first quarter. After not playing a game last season, Rudd has been solid this year, and he and Gahan were great in defence this week. The various in-game positional moves, with Baldwin moving back, Rudd briefly going forward, Tovey playing midfield and forward, and Rankin playing midfield and halfback, all worked very well. Hobbs was especially good in the first and fourth quarters. There's hardly anything new to say about what a great player he is; it's crucial that we re-sign him, and he'll be a deserving winner of the best and fairest.
That ended up being a brilliant game from Hird - one of the best games of his career so far. 4 goals is a career best for him and he had 6 clearances as well. The way he found space for his goals on the run was great. Very much a captain's game.
Tovey was back in good form, and Rankin was good as well. Some good moments from George also. Tonelli's work rate is good; not a lot of possessions but obviously high impact. Sparkman, Rider, Mulady, Hawkins, and Alessio jointly led us for tackles with 6 each. [Edit: updated stats show 7 tackles for Hawkins.] Penry led us for clearances with 7. I could go through the game and find a highlight from everyone. This team is showing some real resilience to recover from the first quarter, get back in the game, and keep playing hard to get the comeback win.
The commentators said Green was on managed minutes, which does seem to have been the case since he didn't go on until the second quarter. Playing someone knowing he wouldn't play his usual number of minutes was definitely a risk, but we won and Green should now have better match fitness for next week, so it worked out.
I do wonder if Polkinghorne could have more impact as part of the midfield rotation again, but we have a number of players who do their best work in the midfield.
If St Kilda beat Carlton or Gold Coast beat GWS, we'll finish this round in the 10 and our fate will again be in our own hands. But if Carlton beat St Kilda and GWS beat Gold Coast, we'll finish 11th. (We'll move ahead of Williamstown if Coburg win and ahead of Coburg if Willy win or it's a draw, so we can't end up lower than 11th.) No idea what to expect from next week's game against Collingwood. We'll need to play the way we did this week in the second half.
Good to see the girls get the win too. I was not expecting the VFLW win with the Bulldogs having 6 AFLW-listed players in their side, especially with Mackenzie Bourne being a late out for us. But the third quarter was up there with the best we've played all season. We could use more polish on the handball chains - in the first half in particular there were some problems with missed handballs and the receiving player not necessarily being in the best position keep the play going if she did get the handball receive. But it was a hard-fought win after being down by 6 at the half and having the wind against us in the final quarter. Some positional moves paid off well, with McBride-Loane going forward and Georgia Foran probably best on ground with great contributions both forward and back. A good debut from Eimear Scally as well.
I just watched the last quarter of the women's game and thought that despite not scoring, we played well. With the late goals to Footscray really making it look closer than it was. As you mentioned Spiny some of the passages of pay with link up handball got us into trouble. I'll watch it he third quarter to look at some of our better passages. I thought we were well disciplined in the last.
Tom Hird was the players selection as man of the match in the post game function too btw Spiny.
Agreed, it was a good last quarter too in the women's game. Nearly all the scoring came at the right-hand side of the ground (as seen onscreen), so we did well indeed to maintain our lead. The third quarter's well worth watching too.
Thanks for the additional info, NorthPort. Hird certainly deserved it - after a shocker of a first quarter he completely turned things around and put up a really excellent performance. He's been developing well under McCartney and is starting to take the next steps of winning more clearances and also continuing to impact games while getting more attention from the opposition.
Hope the team can back it up next week - very good to see that our fate is in our own hands again as far as making finals goes.
Incredible! Another game where we have looked a beaten side early but have persevered to notch some a great win.
The atmosphere both during the game and post-match is the best I can recall for some time. Alessio finishing with 6 and Dom kicking 3, show that if we can get the footy into good areas we have very potent forward options, same with Baldwin.
Hird and Hobbs got plenty of the footy and it was Connor Downie that was outstanding today and without re-watching the game his work rate and delivery forward created real pressure on the Pies.
Macca at 3/4 time said our fitness and ability to run the game out would see us run over them and he was spot on.
Tassie should they win will see the ladder reshuffle a little bit, but how good is it to be back in finals footy after a 7 year drought I think it is.
*edit - I forgot to say how good Gahan was as well. His game has gone to another level this year. He showed real potential when he first joined the club and he has improved out of sight.
It looks like we get a week's rest so hopefully we are cherry ripe when by the second week of finals footy!
Yes, that was a great comeback! That McCartney could have such confidence in the team at 3/4 time shows how much we've improved. After being on the wrong end of a number of fourth-quarter comebacks last season it's great to see the improvement. And with Willy beating Frankston and Southport beating Coburg, we'll finish 6th on the ladder regardless of the GWS-Tasmania result. A few weeks ago I didn't think we could manage better than a wildcard spot, but we've locked in an elimination final.
Alessio of course was brilliant. In preseason he kicked 6 against Essendon, albeit against what seems to have been a weak defense, and now he's improved to the point of kicking 6 in a home and away game to play a crucial role in putting us into finals. Agreed that Downie and Gahan were excellent as well, as was Hobbs, who continues his streak of being named in the best in every game he plays. Rankin and Green both had a strong second half, and Tovey is in good form as well. Graham strong in defence.
Bedendo is now one goal behind Baldwin for the season, so either of them could easily end up our leading goalkicker.
The various in-game positional moves all seem to be working very well now. Some of the ones tried early on in the season didn't work but we seem to have a pretty clear set of positional changes now that we can execute smoothly within games. I think that versatility is a big factor in how we've been able in a number of games to turn things around when the game's not going our way.
A solid game from Hird in his 100th; he was one who was keeping us in it during that second quarter. When we signed him ahead of the 2023 season I wasn't even sure if he'd be best 23 - I'd watched some VFL in 2022 and had seen enough of his games to know that at Essendon he had a great work rate and good endurance and not much else by way of attributes, having only returned to footy in 2020 (and then missed the entire 2020 season because of lockdowns and a navicular stress fracture). But he's obviously put a great deal of work into developing as a footballer and has played every game and been top 4 in the best and fairest every season since signing with us. And his onfield leadership is obvious (I think I've mentioned wondering if he'll go into coaching eventually). He certainly looks to be a worthy successor to Hooper as captain, and hopefully he stays at the club for a long time yet.
There are still some things we'll need to improve. It seems that when we have a good first quarter, we're extremely vulnerable to the opposition really turning it on and overtaking us in the second quarter. In finals we'll have to play a solid four quarters, which we've mostly still struggled to do. We have got to stop giving away 50-metre penalties. The umpiring this week was terrible but the 50-metre penalties were ones that anyone would have paid. Our tackling was unusually poor this week across the second and third quarters. Finishing -16 in tackles in a 26-point win looks fine on paper, but when we were down at the half we were also -20 in tackles, and at 3/4 time when we were down by 9 we were also -19 in tackles. And our efficiency inside forward 50 did leave something to be desired. But as you say hopefully we'll make good use of the bye and be ready to put up a strong performance in the elimination final.
Making finals should help with player retention. There is clearly still more work to be done to get us to the point of contending for a premiership, but if we retain most of this year's list, including all our best players, and at least keep McCartney I am inclined to be optimistic about the future. I expect a few of our players to return to AFL lists over the next few years, but hopefully that will help with recruiting. We do seem to be on the right track, with clear improvement in the overall team and in many individual players.
Hope James Hird sees out our finals campaign with us even if he'll be taking up a position at Essendon next year. [edit to clarify that I'm referring to next year with Essendon; obviously if his contract were to start while our season is ongoing he'd have to leave since he couldn't be at two clubs, but whether that would happen is the point I'm unsure about.] Not sure how that works with Essendon apparently set to make an announcement before the season is over for any of the clubs where the finalists work. I absolutely wish him the best if he gets the job, but he'll be difficult to replace and it would be too bad to not have him for finals. Essendon's VFL side will finish 5th, so the only way we'd play them in finals is if they and us both make it to the grand final.
Does anyone here know if Rosman's shoulder injury is season-ending? It would be a shame for him to miss our finals campaign.
Unfortunately in the VFLW game poor goalkicking was costly. There were some defensive breakdowns in the second and third quarters, and I'm not sure what was going on with the times we didn't contest a ruck contest at all and Collingwood got the clearance easily. But with the final score 5.5 to 6.1 goalkicking accuracy was the difference between the sides. Strong performances as usual from Mia Caffry and Eloise Ashley-Cooper. A great accomplishment for Courtney Bromage to have made it to 100 games; with as short as the VFLW seasons are, that's a real testament to her consistency. Our fate is still in our own hands as regards finals; we just need to win both our last games to be sure of a spot. Darebin we should beat again, but I'm unsure what to expect from Box Hill next week now that the AFLW season has started and the reserves and aligned sides are playing more AFLW players.
No word on Rosman from my knowledge. The deficiency in tackles is a concern. I didn't mention how please I have with Penry as well. He has had more opportunity with Grants long term injur and there has been continued improvement t both in the ruck and around the ground that will hold him (and the club) in good stead.
Yes I do think that should James Hird get the Essendon job that it could be a destabiliser at the club and would love to see him commit to seeing out the season.
I'd expect retention to be pretty good this off-season as the club looks to be on the right track.
Find it very difficult to get too excited about the VFL women's comp NorthPort.
I wonder if anyone agrees with me ??
We might be from the bush. but we ain't green
I think many even myself might agree with you Digs and a good barometer are crowd attendances which definitely confirms its not just you.
17 PREMIERSHIPS, 19 X Runners up
THE VFLS MOST SUCCESSFUL CLUB - THE MIGHTY PORT MELBOURNE BOROUGH!
I'M PORT MELBURNE BORN, I'M PORT MELBOURNE BRED, I'LL BE PORT UNTIL I'M DEAD!!!
Yes, not sure of the numbers but the crowds for the women's games look to be less than a third of the crowds for the men's games. It's true that the women's games are (inevitably) slower paced and lower skilled and (hopefully not inevitably) the comp is more uneven. It occurs to me that once the AFLW season actually starts the comp may end up even more uneven than it has been, with more AFLW players not selected for the senior team playing VFLW finals - hope not as that would be to our disadvantage. Either way, not trying to convince anyone else to be interested. It will always draw fewer spectators than the men's comp.
Very true, NorthPort, that the umpiring didn't help matters. Manton's best games this season have come playing higher up the ground, but I'm also not sure where he fits best. Inconsistency has always been something of a problem for him. If Penry could be a tall forward option, that would allow us to play all of him, Grant, and a mature ruck recruit in the side next season, so it seems worth a shot. That might push Manton out of the side unless he could reinvent himself as a defender or a full-time wing. [Edit: not sure who'd come out of defence though - he'd have to turn out to be very good in defence to push out any of our current defenders.] If he's a wing, Stubbings could then join the midfield rotation. If Polkinghorne spends more time in the midfield, perhaps Rankin then stays at halfback, though he's so versatile I doubt he'd actually spend his whole career there. Rankin on the wing is probably a better option than Manton even though Manton's done some good work there. Perhaps Downie, Rankin, and Manton could be the wing rotation if Hobbs/Hird/Green/Stubbings/Polkinghorne is the midfield rotation, with Tovey continuing to split his time between midfield and forward.
Gahan has been putting together an impressive season. It's been great to see him get a relatively clean run at it after an injury-interrupted season last year. I've been impressed with Van Es as well.
Phew! That's one that I will watch again. Plenty of improvement left 🙂
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Yeah, that was a great comeback. Particularly in the second half, the team really increased the pressure and intensity and kept it up to the point that Richmond finally weren't able to go with us. It was quite a turnaround, with the first quarter being one of the worst we've played all season and the second half being one of our best performances. There were some brilliant acts of desperation like Tom Graham charging into our forward 50 at about 19:30 in the third quarter to spoil a Richmond player's making attempt, which led to Alessio recovering the ball and handballing to Tonelli for a goal. [Edit: rewatched that bit, it was also Graham who recovered the ground ball after the spoil and got it to Alessio who got to Tonelli.] Every player in the side ended up playing hard and contributing something to the win.
Hobbs, Gahan, Rudd, Stubbings, and Baldwin all deserve credit for standing up in the otherwise bad first quarter. After not playing a game last season, Rudd has been solid this year, and he and Gahan were great in defence this week. The various in-game positional moves, with Baldwin moving back, Rudd briefly going forward, Tovey playing midfield and forward, and Rankin playing midfield and halfback, all worked very well. Hobbs was especially good in the first and fourth quarters. There's hardly anything new to say about what a great player he is; it's crucial that we re-sign him, and he'll be a deserving winner of the best and fairest.
That ended up being a brilliant game from Hird - one of the best games of his career so far. 4 goals is a career best for him and he had 6 clearances as well. The way he found space for his goals on the run was great. Very much a captain's game.
Tovey was back in good form, and Rankin was good as well. Some good moments from George also. Tonelli's work rate is good; not a lot of possessions but obviously high impact. Sparkman, Rider, Mulady, Hawkins, and Alessio jointly led us for tackles with 6 each. [Edit: updated stats show 7 tackles for Hawkins.] Penry led us for clearances with 7. I could go through the game and find a highlight from everyone. This team is showing some real resilience to recover from the first quarter, get back in the game, and keep playing hard to get the comeback win.
The commentators said Green was on managed minutes, which does seem to have been the case since he didn't go on until the second quarter. Playing someone knowing he wouldn't play his usual number of minutes was definitely a risk, but we won and Green should now have better match fitness for next week, so it worked out.
I do wonder if Polkinghorne could have more impact as part of the midfield rotation again, but we have a number of players who do their best work in the midfield.
If St Kilda beat Carlton or Gold Coast beat GWS, we'll finish this round in the 10 and our fate will again be in our own hands. But if Carlton beat St Kilda and GWS beat Gold Coast, we'll finish 11th. (We'll move ahead of Williamstown if Coburg win and ahead of Coburg if Willy win or it's a draw, so we can't end up lower than 11th.) No idea what to expect from next week's game against Collingwood. We'll need to play the way we did this week in the second half.
Good to see the girls get the win too. I was not expecting the VFLW win with the Bulldogs having 6 AFLW-listed players in their side, especially with Mackenzie Bourne being a late out for us. But the third quarter was up there with the best we've played all season. We could use more polish on the handball chains - in the first half in particular there were some problems with missed handballs and the receiving player not necessarily being in the best position keep the play going if she did get the handball receive. But it was a hard-fought win after being down by 6 at the half and having the wind against us in the final quarter. Some positional moves paid off well, with McBride-Loane going forward and Georgia Foran probably best on ground with great contributions both forward and back. A good debut from Eimear Scally as well.
I just watched the last quarter of the women's game and thought that despite not scoring, we played well. With the late goals to Footscray really making it look closer than it was. As you mentioned Spiny some of the passages of pay with link up handball got us into trouble. I'll watch it he third quarter to look at some of our better passages. I thought we were well disciplined in the last.
Tom Hird was the players selection as man of the match in the post game function too btw Spiny.
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Agreed, it was a good last quarter too in the women's game. Nearly all the scoring came at the right-hand side of the ground (as seen onscreen), so we did well indeed to maintain our lead. The third quarter's well worth watching too.
Thanks for the additional info, NorthPort. Hird certainly deserved it - after a shocker of a first quarter he completely turned things around and put up a really excellent performance. He's been developing well under McCartney and is starting to take the next steps of winning more clearances and also continuing to impact games while getting more attention from the opposition.
Hope the team can back it up next week - very good to see that our fate is in our own hands again as far as making finals goes.
Incredible! Another game where we have looked a beaten side early but have persevered to notch some a great win.
The atmosphere both during the game and post-match is the best I can recall for some time. Alessio finishing with 6 and Dom kicking 3, show that if we can get the footy into good areas we have very potent forward options, same with Baldwin.
Hird and Hobbs got plenty of the footy and it was Connor Downie that was outstanding today and without re-watching the game his work rate and delivery forward created real pressure on the Pies.
Macca at 3/4 time said our fitness and ability to run the game out would see us run over them and he was spot on.
Tassie should they win will see the ladder reshuffle a little bit, but how good is it to be back in finals footy after a 7 year drought I think it is.
*edit - I forgot to say how good Gahan was as well. His game has gone to another level this year. He showed real potential when he first joined the club and he has improved out of sight.
It looks like we get a week's rest so hopefully we are cherry ripe when by the second week of finals footy!
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
Yes, that was a great comeback! That McCartney could have such confidence in the team at 3/4 time shows how much we've improved. After being on the wrong end of a number of fourth-quarter comebacks last season it's great to see the improvement. And with Willy beating Frankston and Southport beating Coburg, we'll finish 6th on the ladder regardless of the GWS-Tasmania result. A few weeks ago I didn't think we could manage better than a wildcard spot, but we've locked in an elimination final.
Alessio of course was brilliant. In preseason he kicked 6 against Essendon, albeit against what seems to have been a weak defense, and now he's improved to the point of kicking 6 in a home and away game to play a crucial role in putting us into finals. Agreed that Downie and Gahan were excellent as well, as was Hobbs, who continues his streak of being named in the best in every game he plays. Rankin and Green both had a strong second half, and Tovey is in good form as well. Graham strong in defence.
Bedendo is now one goal behind Baldwin for the season, so either of them could easily end up our leading goalkicker.
The various in-game positional moves all seem to be working very well now. Some of the ones tried early on in the season didn't work but we seem to have a pretty clear set of positional changes now that we can execute smoothly within games. I think that versatility is a big factor in how we've been able in a number of games to turn things around when the game's not going our way.
A solid game from Hird in his 100th; he was one who was keeping us in it during that second quarter. When we signed him ahead of the 2023 season I wasn't even sure if he'd be best 23 - I'd watched some VFL in 2022 and had seen enough of his games to know that at Essendon he had a great work rate and good endurance and not much else by way of attributes, having only returned to footy in 2020 (and then missed the entire 2020 season because of lockdowns and a navicular stress fracture). But he's obviously put a great deal of work into developing as a footballer and has played every game and been top 4 in the best and fairest every season since signing with us. And his onfield leadership is obvious (I think I've mentioned wondering if he'll go into coaching eventually). He certainly looks to be a worthy successor to Hooper as captain, and hopefully he stays at the club for a long time yet.
There are still some things we'll need to improve. It seems that when we have a good first quarter, we're extremely vulnerable to the opposition really turning it on and overtaking us in the second quarter. In finals we'll have to play a solid four quarters, which we've mostly still struggled to do. We have got to stop giving away 50-metre penalties. The umpiring this week was terrible but the 50-metre penalties were ones that anyone would have paid. Our tackling was unusually poor this week across the second and third quarters. Finishing -16 in tackles in a 26-point win looks fine on paper, but when we were down at the half we were also -20 in tackles, and at 3/4 time when we were down by 9 we were also -19 in tackles. And our efficiency inside forward 50 did leave something to be desired. But as you say hopefully we'll make good use of the bye and be ready to put up a strong performance in the elimination final.
Making finals should help with player retention. There is clearly still more work to be done to get us to the point of contending for a premiership, but if we retain most of this year's list, including all our best players, and at least keep McCartney I am inclined to be optimistic about the future. I expect a few of our players to return to AFL lists over the next few years, but hopefully that will help with recruiting. We do seem to be on the right track, with clear improvement in the overall team and in many individual players.
Hope James Hird sees out our finals campaign with us even if he'll be taking up a position at Essendon next year. [edit to clarify that I'm referring to next year with Essendon; obviously if his contract were to start while our season is ongoing he'd have to leave since he couldn't be at two clubs, but whether that would happen is the point I'm unsure about.] Not sure how that works with Essendon apparently set to make an announcement before the season is over for any of the clubs where the finalists work. I absolutely wish him the best if he gets the job, but he'll be difficult to replace and it would be too bad to not have him for finals. Essendon's VFL side will finish 5th, so the only way we'd play them in finals is if they and us both make it to the grand final.
Does anyone here know if Rosman's shoulder injury is season-ending? It would be a shame for him to miss our finals campaign.
Unfortunately in the VFLW game poor goalkicking was costly. There were some defensive breakdowns in the second and third quarters, and I'm not sure what was going on with the times we didn't contest a ruck contest at all and Collingwood got the clearance easily. But with the final score 5.5 to 6.1 goalkicking accuracy was the difference between the sides. Strong performances as usual from Mia Caffry and Eloise Ashley-Cooper. A great accomplishment for Courtney Bromage to have made it to 100 games; with as short as the VFLW seasons are, that's a real testament to her consistency. Our fate is still in our own hands as regards finals; we just need to win both our last games to be sure of a spot. Darebin we should beat again, but I'm unsure what to expect from Box Hill next week now that the AFLW season has started and the reserves and aligned sides are playing more AFLW players.
No word on Rosman from my knowledge. The deficiency in tackles is a concern. I didn't mention how please I have with Penry as well. He has had more opportunity with Grants long term injur and there has been continued improvement t both in the ruck and around the ground that will hold him (and the club) in good stead.
Yes I do think that should James Hird get the Essendon job that it could be a destabiliser at the club and would love to see him commit to seeing out the season.
I'd expect retention to be pretty good this off-season as the club looks to be on the right track.
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
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