The Western Bulldogs and Essendon have combined to produce one of the most putrid games ever witnessed in the nine-season history of the AFLW on Friday night.
The Bombers might have emerged victorious by 23 points, but women’s football was the big loser, as the both teams conspired to deliver an ugly black eye to the sport, which might set the league back years.
In perfect conditions in front of a healthy crowd of approximately 4000 at Whitten Oval, and in a prime time timeslot, the Dogs and Dons could only manage one goal between them in the opening three quarters, which went Essendon’s way courtesy of a 50m penalty.
The Bombers managed another couple in the last term to win 3.8 (26) to 0.3 (3), but the damage had well and truly been done by then, 카지노사이트 and it’s hard to imagine too many viewers who tuned in at the start of the match continued watching to that point of the contest.
The controversial condensed fixturing has been a huge talking point for much of the season, and while that might be a valid excuse for the Bombers, who played their fourth game in 15 days, the same slack cannot be afforded for the Bulldogs who headed into this match on the back of consecutive week-long breaks.
“We’ve just got to probably work a little bit harder in the off-season so we are able to run out games,” Bulldogs coach Tamara Hyatt said.
Essendon coach Natalie Wood added: “Off the back of four games in 15 days, I think our finesse and our touch was probably not as good as it could be.”
Rather than taking the game on, being proactive and looking to score, both teams employed conservative, risk-averse game plans and were more interested in avoiding being scored against. It made for a shocking spectacle and while Hyatt admitted to grappling between putting on a show and teaching her team defence, that balance has clearly gone way out of whack.