Last week Chelsea beat Bulleen and lost to Ringwood, both close games. Chelsea could be D1 darkhorse this year.

Ringwood youth men belted Casey Cav's D2 men. Casey are a rabble not even worthy of a A grade domestic status. Ringwood Champ women struggled big time to get over Geelong SEABL women. Ringwood really bad with no depth but Geelong are much worse.

Do we know how many suited up for the Geelong women on the Sunday match against Ringwood? The Lady Supercats only had 8 available players for their Saturday night match against Hume City Women and got a win there - Hume had 13 players suited up, so in the warm conditions were in a much better position, but struggled down the stretch under the pressure applied by Geelong.
And of those 8 suited up for Geelong, only 3 were regular players last year, 2 more were predominantly bench players last year and the other 3 are new to the team this season. Not sure if any more suited up for the Sunday match, but Blicavs wouldn't have, Rogers didn’t line up Saturday and don’t know if she did Sunday, not sure where White is in her recovery and the news came through yesterday that Morrissy won’t be playing this season.
Taking that into account, I wouldn’t read too much into the loss for the Geelong – not when they were under strength and playing their 2nd game in less than 24hours in 30+ degree weather.

geelong had at least 10 on the bech maybe 12. You can make all the excuses in the world about missing players etc but if this is the team they are bringing to the floor for the season then they will not win a game. Tell me this why bring a team of players who are not going to play to a practice match ? Just decline it and save the angony.

Be interested to know who the 10 or 12 they bought were considering they only had 8 for the Saturday night. Maybe they got a few players from the Big V side to help make the numbers for the Sunday to make it fair to both sides that players at least got a run.
Maybe players traveled to the match to support their teammates even though they weren't going to play - what a novel idea to actually support teammates even when not playing.
If they had 10 or 12 players suited up on Sunday, it wouldn't have been the full squad they are taking into the SEABL season, and maybe with the club knowing that they had at least 1 roster spot free, plus possibly having rookie spots free they wanted to trial a few things and see what happened.
Considering the final score was 48-41, doesn't sound like either team was overally impressive and I wouldn't be reading much into the results of practice matches anyway.

Hume City defeated Bulleen last night 90-72. Bulleen still missing a few players though.

This really is SEABL women but it goes to the Geelong v Hawks game. Geelong played Nunawading yesterday and where simply embarassing. The lost 87 to 38 in a totslly one sided game. Geelong had thier FULL team so for those die hards who want to now come up with the excuses knock yourselves out. Nunawading are still to have thier US PG import to suit up as well.
Geelong, should have looked at D1 Big V instead.

How could Geelong have their full team when one of the players - Sarah Blicavs was playing in the WNBL semi-final? Or did she suit up in the practice match first before heading over to Dandenong to play that match? That's not a full squad if you are missing one of your imports.

Geelong played Frankston Saturday afternoon and won 64-53 after losing a Ebony Ralph in the dying seconds of the 3rd qtr to a knee injury. No reports on how serious the injury is, but considering she had to be carried off the court and wasn't seen back on the bench it would be highly unlikely she played yesterday - still waiting on an injury report to see the full extent of the injury and how long she is out for.

Add in the loss of the captain during the week and that is at least 3 players who didn't suit up yesterday - definitely no where near full strength.

Not sure what time the practice match was on as nothing was advertised - but some of the girls were reportedly at the WNBL prelim yesterday cheering on Sara & Dandenong; so hopefully the practice game was before hand otherwise Paul may have decided to test out a few things and run the rookies to see how they go and give some seniors a rest after playing 4 games in 8 days.

The practice match results aren't that different from last years. We had a much stronger side against Ringwood last year and went down with them having a rather convincing win, the week before the season started we went down to a well understrength Nunawading on our home court; a week later with us having the same team while Nunawading got the inclusion of their imports we won 75-56.

Watching how Paul coaches in these practice matches he doesn't necessarily seem as concerned about winning as trying different things. He is willing to give the kids & the rookies a chance to see how they stand up, he looks at different match-ups to see what works and what doesn't. This isn't the way he coaches during the season, so no concerns.

Practice match results... Serious business.

Anyone beating their chest over practice match results is clueless.

SMART Coaches try new things, run their benches and forget the score board.
Rookies and inexperienced Coaches play for sheep stations.

Saw Dande play Kilsyth YL Men yesterday in a practice match, Dande lost after blowing a lead, player and coach behavior was embarrassing, anyone would think it was a GF.

yeah right lets all practice losing !!!

There is a difference between playing to lose and having a look at available players to see how they stand up under different situations.

If all you want out of practice matches is wins, then by all means only play your strongest 8 or so players (if you have them all available). But if you are wanting to see what options you have for during the season, how players stand up in different situations and what combinations work - this is when you try it. It may mean taking a hit in terms of wins in the preseason, but could work in your favour come later in the year when you have to go deeper on the bench/squad.

Look at the approach from different AFL clubs - many of them trail this youth at this time of the year to see who is ready to stand up at the start of the season, and they also know that it is a long year and stupid to have your main players going at 100% from Feb when the season goes to September.

Ive seen a few teams already sit in a zone for most of the game to get the crucial practice match "W".

In response to Reply #407583:
Geelong actually have 6 senior mens & womens teams in the following comps:
Victorian Youth Championship
Big V Div 1
SEABL
Sorry, already got Div 1 Big V covered

Hume City defeated Werribee by 5-10 points on Saturday SCM.