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Saturday, September 12
Second Preliminary Final: North Melbourne Werribee vs Collingwood
Arden Street Oval, 11:35am AEST
Broadcaster: AFL.com.au and AFL Live Official App
First Preliminary Final: Williamstown vs Port Melbourne
DSV Stadium, 1:35pm AEST
Broadcaster: AFL.com.au and AFL Live Official App
Well, that was a big improvement over our performance against Williamstown in round 4, and it was a good job by the girls to fight back and retake the lead in the fourth quarter. The fact that we came so close shows how much the team has improved over the course of the season.
Poor goalkicking and inefficiency inside forward 50 were costly; we were +13 for inside 50s, but in addition to the 8 behinds, there were several shots that went out on the full. Williamstown were certainly the stronger team in the 2nd and 3rd quarters, with Caffry and Jones surprisingly well held after quarter time as far as possessions went, although as usual they worked hard defensively and were instrumental in our 4th-quarter efforts. Williamstown were cleaner at marking as well - their ability to win contested marks in their forward 50 was crucial to their win. We weren't able to pull in as many of those contested marks, and we missed McKeller and Barton in defence. But to keep working and get back into the contest against the ladder leaders, who'd had the benefit of a week off, was a great effort that shows we aren't as far off the top sides as I'd thought earlier in the season.
Not sure about the decision to drop Emily Harley, which cost us a bit of height up forward. But I hope Seisia White re-signs; she's shown some good signs this season and I think there's a lot to work with there.
Good game from O'Keefe with 3 goals and 6 tackles.
Hope we re-sign Eimear Scally as well. She brings some real speed to the side an has often been among our best players after debuting relatively late in the season.
Provided we can retain players, the next coach should have a lot to work with next season to build on what we've developed so far. Hope we can find a good replacement for Tom Chitsos now that he's departing for Richmond. This season was certainly better than the previous one, and the team showed real improvement as the season went on. With some more polish and better finishing inside 50 we could well go farther next year.
I'll wish Williamstown luck for next week since they're an independent side. North do have the affiliation with Werribee but also access to AFLW players. It also seems best for the comp to have some different teams on top.
I got to the game today, and couldn't be more proud of Ports efforts. Some poor free kicks gifted the Seagulls a couple of goals in the second quarter that I think will be looked back on and rued. O'Keefe in front of goals was terrific I agree.
If you told me that we'd make a prelim in 2026 at the start of the season, I would have been very happy with that, and I think the program at Port is running well.
A couple of things that I was discussing with a former poster here (StationHotel) today about women's football...
Time-on needs to come in... It's long overdue. Without it, and playing flat 20 minute quarters so much crucial time is wasted by little things like delays in field umpires throwing the ball up after stoppages. It needs to be near instant once the whistle is blown. Also if a ball is contested on the ground, be quick to make a decision to ball it up, or call a free. It can last an eternity before the umpire actually makes a decision. The same thing goes for players being tackled. Call it quickly, including illegal disposals so that less time is wasted. The lasoo free kick is an example of where they have tried to keep the game moving, but these other areas should be looked at.
I'm not blaming the loss today on these factors, and in our VFLW Grand Final against Collingwood, I was conscious of wasted time being used to our advantage. These things need to be addressed and I think playing time-on for stoppages should be absolute priority.
Hopefully Williamstown can go all the way. They moved the ball today and were cleaner at times with the footy.
Also, a really good crowd turned out for the game with some real atmosphere, particularly when the game was up for grabs late.
* It's time to restore the VFA name.
All good points, NorthPort. I agree that that the league should bring in time on. Fitness is clearly at a level where the game could be lengthened. If the league does introduce time on they'd probably make it the same as in the AFLW rather than the same as in the men's comp, which would mean time on after all goals + only in the last 2 minutes for stoppages. [Edit: last 2 minutes of every quarter, that is.] I'm hoping that they eventually apply the same rules for time on in the women's comp as in the men's, but I don't think that will happen as long as some AFLW teams are clearly much less fit than others - not sure that's a good argument as longer quarters could provide the incentive for bottom teams to increase fitness, but I think that is what the AFL administration is thinking when it comes to AFLW quarter length, which will affect what they do with VFLW quarter length. (I think the VFLW may more even in terms of player fitness than the AFLW and that AFLW fitness gaps often reflect how seriously different clubs take the competition.) Having the same rules in VFLW and AFLW would make it a bit easier for players to make the jump to the top level as well.
Also true that the umpires are often not quick enough to make decisions. I'm not a fan of the lasso rule, particularly in the men's comp; I can see more of an argument for it still in the women's comp where kicking skills and positioning are not as good, but I'd been hoping the women's comp would eventually move to the same rule as the men, and if insufficient intent is too difficult to adjudicate, I'd rather go back to the old deliberate rule. But the league's already done the opposite of what I wanted there, and I don't see that changing. I'm not convince the lasso has made things easier for umpires, considering all the little conferences we see on the boundary now trying to figure out who touched it last, and I think it's a high price to pay for what's generally a skill error. Admittedly I don't have numbers to back myself up here, but I think we've seen enough lasso free kicks that it doesn't seem to be significantly reducing the frequency of that skill error either.
On the other hand there have been games, particularly in the men's comp, where we'd have hardly got any free kicks if it weren't for the lasso!
I agree also that the Port women can be very proud of their efforts yesterday and of their season. I'd also have taken this result at the start of the season.
Glad to hear also that it was a good crowd with good atmosphere. It looked good on the livestream, which did pick up some of the crowd noise as well.