Re: AFLW-Raising the skill level.
Reply #12 –
Watching a player go off in tears after a decent hit is purely an AFLW phenomenon and I'm not sure that it will change markedly. Of course women don't tear up when thumped in a martial arts contest but they're there to be hit and hit back (thanks Warren!). Bing hit is not the primary objective of footy.
When the other Prespakis was cleaned up by friendly fire, our (then) Prespakis stopped to check on her while the play was going on. Understandable, but not what you'd see from the Curnow brothers.
I think that we are one of the better teams at dealing with heavy knocks. Our girls rarely stay down for long and I can't recall any tears. We dish out a fair bit of punishment too, but are way off the pace when it comes to outright thuggery.
AFLW will always suffer from a lack of penetration from kicking and handballing. Precision may be down but that can improve, the power to kick 50m or handpass without looping the ball won't develop. That's where an AFLW-specific gamestyle needs to accommodate shorter kicking and slower handpassing.