Reflecting on the game the morning after the night before.
There were lots of upsides:
Big crowd, lots of families, great to get back to a suburban ground, the weather was kind and the players gave the proverbial 110%.
It's hard to ignore that the concept is still in its infancy and it is benefiting from its novelty, the desperation of punters to get back into footy and the free entry which made it a no risk option especially for big families or those with little kids. Short quarters (about 16 min) also made it easier for those testing AFL for the first time.
That said, for diehard followers, it has some way to go when it comes to skill level. No disrespect to the players is intended, they are essentially amateurs breaking new ground. The improvement will come but at the moment it's like watching a good standard high school footy. Lots off missed marks and misdirected kicks. Star players stand out and break open games and scores can be lop sided. With that in mind I'm surprised that the coaches adopting a game plan that involved high levels of skill and high risk e.g. multiple kicks across the ground to create spread, bouncing the ball to run out of the back line. In fairness to the coaches, this may be part of the upskilling process but it killed us last night. It must also be a difficult exercise to coach against players with so little knowledge of their abilities.
Anyway, it's early days and it will be interesting to see how the game evolves. Good luck to the team in the remaining games.
