Aflw - 2025

[Hotdog60]

Scrappy game atm both sides in defensive mode and Port doing slightly better. I look at Leah Swain and think she should dominate in the ruck but is getting out tapped on a few occasions by a much smaller opponent. Also she doesn't look like she's played much footy unless being nearly 40 might have something to do with it.

[Hotdog60]

Dogs get up in the end and to her credit Swain was a lot better in the second half. All 3 dogs teams have wins

[BiteNibbleChomp]

VFLW Round 8

If you go on the wikipedia page for Whitten Oval, it tells a few stories of games being greatly impacted by the wind - a game in the 60s where just 7 points were scored against the wind; another one in the 40s where the wind stole a kick-in and took the ball straight back through the posts. I had thought us building that giant training room behind the Barkly Street end goals had blocked the wind a bit and those sorts of things were in the past. Nope. Today the wind was blowing towards the Geelong Road end, and just three inside 50s were achieved against the wind. None of them at all deep, none of them resulting in shots at goal. It's a rare day too when the puffy Bulldogs jacket I got in Ballarat doesn't keep the chill out . Welcome to the kennel, Port Melbourne.

Before the game, we were 9th (of 12) on the ladder; the Borough were 6th, with only half a game and about 15 percentage points separating them from the top spot.

Stats
Scoreline
Bulldogs 2.0 2.0 5.3 5.3.33
Borough 0.0 3.0 3.0 3.5.23
Hitouts
Bulldogs 16 28 36 47
Borough 8 21 28 40
Clearances
Bulldogs 9 14 20 34
Borough 7 19 26 29
Tackles
Bulldogs 21 45 63 91
Borough 31 45 55 76
Frees
Bulldogs 5 6 8 9
Borough 1 4 7 11
i50s
Bulldogs 12 13 24 24
Borough 2 14 14 28
Disposals
Bulldogs 42 80 128 177 (116K/59H)
Borough 51 94 143 190 (122K/68H)
Marks
Bulldogs 2 10 24 25
Borough 8 12 24 32

Bulldogs Scorers (* for VFLW players)
McFarlane* 2.1
Young* 1.0
Weston-Turner 1.0
Tabb* 1.0
Livingstone* 0.1
(Rushed 0.1)

General Observations
It was windy. It was scrappy. The ball spent the whole game near the Geelong Road 50 line. I spent the whole time watching our forwards - we only had two senior players in today and they were both in the forward line. I'd rather just discuss them:

Players
Ferres was listed at full forward in the lineup yesterday, but played most of the game as a half-forward (McFarlane, Young or Milford typically being our deepest forwards at any one time, and then McLeod filling up the next line along with the two AFLW girls). This was probably the best game she's played this year, although in most of the others I've barely noticed her, so I'm not sure I'm saying a great deal there. I thought her effort and tackle pressure was quite good - the stats give her 5 tackles although there's several more "almosts" that didn't get picked up on the stats sheet. A few highlights included her soccer kick in the third that set up McFarlane's (soccered) first goal, a 45m-out set shot a few minutes later that set up McFarlane's second goal, and an impressive sprint in the fourth in an attempt to stop the ball being lassoed over the line (didn't quite get there sadly). Ended up with 7 disposals and about the middle of the team in fantasy scores.
Westo was listed and played at half forward, almost always out towards one of the wings (though I did notice her briefly as the deepest forward option in the second - I'm guessing she was being rested at that point as the ball was nowhere near her), and I'm confident that she had been told to play much more outside - as far as I can tell she was never part of a big pack trying to get the ball, whereas Ferres was a couple of times - I'd be curious if this is a response to her game at centre-wing in Willy, or the coaches trying out a few options to see where she'd best fit? Her goal 11 minutes into the first was a highlight - a pickup of a ground ball, evading a tackle and snapping from about 35m out. She did also take a kick-in at the boundary, maybe 60m out from goal, that nearly ended up being a behind - just to the right, although the wind helped the distance a lot there. Another ground ball get, then handball to Ferres which was quickly returned and a long kick against the wind was about our only look at going forward during the second quarter - probably an unremarkable passage of play normally but it was very much against the (windy) trend of the game so I thought it deserved a shoutout. More concerning is that this is the second game in a row she's given up a 50, for not going back to her mark after getting pinged for holding the ball (the HTB was after she failed to get a handball away after collecting another low ball and then being tackled), which doubtless contributed to her finishing dead last in fantasy scores for the Bulldogs. Just the 5 disposals (albeit at an impressive 80% efficiency) wouldn't have helped either.

To be fair to both of them, this was a tough game for forwards. I was listening in to the forwards' huddle at three quarter time, and one of the main things they were discussing was the Borough's tactic of putting an extra player down back (and during the fourth quarter, I wouldn't be surprised if there was more than one extra), and at the start of the game the commentators for the game were saying something about both teams putting a lot of focus in defence (I didn't catch the context for that, but I would guess the Borough pre-game having conceded the second fewest points of the league so far this season, and us the fifth fewest, was significant here). Playing against a strong wind for two quarters would have also been quite challenging - McFarlane, our highest scoring forward for the game, finished 9th in our fantasy scores with 53pts, the rest of our forward line was in the bottom half.
At the same time, the state players don't have anywhere near the professional support and training that the national team does, so it seems reasonable to expect the national players to be quite dominant in the state games (as was the case in a few of the earlier games this season). Today they very much weren't.

- BNC