Was thinking this too yesterday Luuuuc.
I saw Downie was going to go across to AFL, but at 32 she would have only had a couple of years left at the top level anyway. My question with the draft was how many of the young talent (like Conti) will decide to move across and perhaps be lost to basketball ? Of the young ones drafted, how many were WNBL calibre athletes that we may lose from our game?

Downie is an interesting one. I wasn't aware that she already had been playing footy for a few years until yesterday when Roy Ward retweeted this article from 2011
http://www.theage.com.au/sport/basketball/downies-passion-bounces-back-after-kicking-it-in-a-different-sport-20111204-1odhj.html

I haven't seen any mention of Conti playing, but yeah it's players like her that are the concern I guess. In her case her ceiling is high and there's an existing pathway to be able to play professionally, which remains to be seen with footy.
Because this season is only 2 months, everyone can have a crack without it being too disruptive of whatever else they're doing. Will be interesting to see how it goes and what the AFL does with it after that though.

Oh, and you're quite right that Stacey never saw a 3 point opportunity she didn't like, so yeah I can definitely picture her having a ping at the big sticks from 40 out. "Lower the eyes, Stacey!" might be a regular one from the Freo runner ;)
I think she could do ok. No idea of her footy skills but she's got the physique for it and with the Lynx last season she certainly didn't shy away from contact.

Netball has been hit a lot harder than basketball from what I gather.

As the aflw grows its a definite threat to aussie women's basketball. I think i read comments from Phillips saying she would have played footy all along had there been a pro league, and that's someone that has made it to the highest levels of hoops. Something to watch

She's a special case though. Most girls aren't raised by a dad who's a star AFL player.

Yeah but it is by far and away the most popular sport in over half of the country. If there is a pathway that passion will likely turn into more girls dedicating themselves to it

Oh no doubt.
AFL has a much bigger fan base than basketball, and just from my personal experience I'd guess that its proportion of female fans is higher than basketball's too. That degree of popularity/awareness surely influences which sport kids get into in the first place once there is a full pathway in place.
AFL is absolutely a threat, and it has the money to be an even bigger threat if it so chooses. Whether it *really* wants to remains to be seen, but I'm guessing it does, because it's a huge area of potential growth for itself as a business.

So the inaugural season kicks off tonight.
Freo Dockers (who play @ Western Bulldogs tomorrow) have at least 3 basketballers in their team so I'm definitely going to have a look at them.
And of course there's no way I'm missing Erin Phillips's debut either - tomorrow at Thebarton Oval, 4:35pm SA time.

Yup, absolutely all over the radio and TV here in Victoria, yet hardly any mention of the NBL double header tonight at all.

If there is any doubt whether Victoria is a Football State, it has been removed without remorse.

Good on them, I hope the games are fun and the girls do great, but this is a semi-pro league at best and the NBL is our best level possible, even the tennis, cricket and soccer gets a decent run on general TV news, bloody disgraceful really...

All this talk about what a historic day this is ... it's a bit rich.

It's not like there haven't been national women's sports leagues in this country for decades!

Credit where it's due though ... massive crowd in! Gates closed. They reckon ~ 18k
Alison Downie dwarfs most of the other players. I guess that shouldn't surprise me.

I watched the Darcy Vescio spectacular..

Busy start for Erin, helping set up the first goal, and milking a couple of frees for herself (definitely some basketball nous showing through there ;) ... but missed both regulation shots

She's killing it now. Huge influence on the game from the forward pocket. Got the kicking boots on now too. Commentators are loving her.

Yeah, the female Nic Nat certainly looks tiny next to the real one.
I doubt it will matter much though. The ruck position seems pretty redundant from what I've seen of the AFLW so far. The skills aren't at the level where a quality ruck will be a big factor.

Erin Phillips one of the best on ground for the Crows today in their big win over GWS.

Tippet and Cambage would be pretty good to watch

^ Andy gets the thumbs up from me for those comments. Hope he is ready to cop some misguided hate now.

I'm a lifelong footy fan and fully supportive of the AFLW, and I enthusiastically watched 3 of the games over the weekend. Love all the hype it generated. Exciting stuff, and great for women's sport.

But it's also a very unrefined product. Which is understandable, since a background of many years playing the sport has not been possible for these women. But it is what it is. The skills and decision-making on display were pretty bad.
Then I went to a Lynx game and watched some world class players doing their thing, in a nice stadium that was fairly sparsely populated, because it wasn't being pumped up by a league whose revenue is measured in hundreds of million$.

The explosion of the AFLW is both exciting and depressing.

No, it's just depressing. Something finally overtook the BBL for that title; at least the BBL is a quality product (the WA team not being shit helps), even if it did directly replace the NBL as Ten's summer sport offering.

I watched the Freo game and the Adelaide game. Was not impressed at all.

feminists have a lot of power at present - IMO the glass ceiling has been smashed and expect more womens issues / rights / advocacy to be at the forefront of our media , funding , lifestyles over the upcoming years.

Erin was great yet again.
Which in a way is not a great look for the AFLW - that a basketballer can come in with a couple of months prep and dominate a football league. But it's certainly testament to Erin's sporting prowess.


Oh, and yes - everyone be very afraid of all the feminists! LOL ... these parasitic women with their $8500 pay packets for the season have come to drain the cash-strapped AFL of its last couple of dollars. It's really a huge injustice.

It genuinely is an injustice, but it's toward the WNBL rather than the AFLM (it's obviously not an injustice to the AFL, being part of it).

Not a football fan anyway, but much as with the BBL taking over as Ten/One's major summer sport, I just can't support it out of principle.

It's also garbage. That doesn't help.

I haven't made my mind up about whether I think it has been bad for the WNBL (in some aspects it definitely has, but I think there could be positives to come out of it as well), but I don't see what injustice has occurred.
Care to elaborate?

The relative media attention the leagues receive, compared to the quality of the players.

Ahh, ok. I was thinking more along the lines of injustices perpetrated by the AFL/W.

Where the ratings go, the media will follow and jump on board. The AFL put out a shiny new thing, marketed the hell out of it, and the people went for it. Despite the product being pretty poor compared to the WNBL. It certainly proved the value of good promotion.

It's mind boggling that junior sports exist?

Women started playing it?

I'm not sure why you think this is so complicated.

^ ignorant comment, these a high percentage of non-hetero or Bi girls in all the womens elite teams, Olympic or otherwise. if its more or less than the general population I neither know or care.

I do know that there are more than a few gay men playing in the national AFL , so what ???

I think this is a classic "do not feed the troll" situation.