AFL Women's - Round 1
Collingwood v Carlton
Friday 3 February, 2017
Princes Park, 7.45pm, 7mate
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She’s a quick thinker and will direct her troops while captain Steph Chiocci’s run and carry out of defence will get the Magpies into space.
Half-back Nicola Stevens likes an intercept mark and her rebound will be crucial to the Magpies’ scoring ability.
“If you’ve got a defender that can beat her opponent but then read the ball that well that she backs herself to go and mark the footy; if you mark the footy, you control the game,” coach Wayne Siekman said.
“Then we start our attack from that. I can’t wait to give her the challenge on the best forward every week.”
Stevens can also be damaging attacking, kicking three goals in one of the Magpies’ practice matches.
Flexibility will be vital in this competition with 16-a-side and just 27 on each list.
Collingwood’s midfield lacks bona fide stars.
They have strong bodied midfielders, including the ferocious Amelia Barden, endurance specialist Bree White and young gun Brittany Bonnici, all who won’t mind getting physical to beat up on the more polished centre-lines.
“Knowing that the best midfielders were marquees or priority picks or were going to go in the first couple of picks, we had to have another strategy,” Siekman said.
“We looked at the players that have the most amount of potential to improve with a good ruckman.
“If they had a dominant ruckman, they might become the next A-graders.”
Left-footer Melissa Kuys is another likely improver. She won the best-and-fairest at local club Knox, which won just a single game last season.
“She was winning the footy with no ruckman – no disrespect to their ruckman – now she’s got a ruckman, how good can she be?” Siekman said.
A dominant ruck is what the Magpies have. They stole Emma King from Fremantle’s grasp by signing her as a marquee.
She won’t lose many taps and at 186cm King showed in a practice match she’s almost as valuable forward.
The excitement surrounding marquee forward Mo Hope is matched internally at the Magpies by her attacking partner in crime from the St Kilda Sharks, Jasmine Garner.
“She’s got all the ability in the world,” Siekman said of the centre half-forward.
“But for some reason no one picked her up and at (pick) 86 she was still sitting there and we’ve thought this is too good to refuse.
‘All it was, she’s just never had a lot of opportunity to get fit.
“She’s amazing, the transformation. She just needed someone to believe in her and we did and she hasn’t let us down.
‘No one will beat her one-on-one in a marking contest. She’s got the best set of hands. Back in the day (like) your Stewart Lowe, who marked everything.”
Siekman also rates another of his forwards, Melbourne Stars batter Jess Cameron.
“She’s the best kick in the AFL,” he said.
“Every session she missed (because of WBBL) she called and said ‘what did I miss, what do I have to do’.
“She trained for the first time in our game simulation and the girls could see for the last month what they’d been missing with her kicking.”
And of course there’s Hope, the 100-goal gun who burst into the wider football consciousness with a six-goal haul in last year’s nationally televised exhibition game.
“We know how good she is reading the ball, marking the footy, kicking goals,” Siekman said.
Now, just to get the ball down there.
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