Daisy Pearce’s raw, passionate and emotional defence of AFLW following league memo

DAISY Pearce has delivered a passionate defence of the women’s game, after a week in which the skill of the players’ and the viability of the competition were brought into question.

Daisy Pearce of the Demons.

DAISY Pearce has delivered a passionate defence of the women’s game, after a week in which the skill of the players’ and the viability of the competition were brought into question.

The Melbourne skipper, like several of her peers, said it was unfortunate the only talking point from the weekend was the “perception that the league is broken”.

Despite this, she acknowledged the players had a key role to play in making the game as attractive as possible.

“I accept and completely agree that we as players and stakeholders have a responsibility to make this game competitive, good to watch, entertaining, and to some degree aesthetically pleasing to the viewer because that viewership — in any competition and in any sport — is what makes the world go around,” Pearce told SEN’s Whateley.

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“Particularly when a competition is in its infancy, we’ve got an even greater responsibility I think to do that, and we accept that.”

Despite this, Pearce said the hard, cold facts are that the AFLW is just eight rounds old, highlighted by the 40 debutants that were unleashed on the weekend across the four matches.

What’s more, she said all the players had invested themselves entirely into the game.

“When I think of the journey to the point of getting here, us players have shown our goodwill and we’ve shown our intent is to help that journey,” Pearce said.

“We’ve gone above and beyond what has been required or what we’ve been paid to do to make sure we get to this point.

“I almost feel like it is a bit reactionary and knee-jerk to one weekend’s result. You put it in context and ... we’re eight games into this competition. It’s Round 1.”

The criticism from Round 1 was really only relevant to one match — the season-opener between Carlton and Collingwood at Ikon Park, where no goals were scored in the second half.

Pearce suggested the scrappy nature of the game reflected grand final conditions, where emotions came to the fore.

“For two months, these Carlton and Collingwood girls have been rolled out to promote this huge game on the opening night in the expectation it’s going to live up to the same standards as last year,” Pearce said.

“You’re going to get a scrappy and emotionally-charged (match). That happens in grand finals, too.

“What grand final have we had where it has been the most skilled game of the season? Often it is scrappy, but the passion and the stakes in it makes it a great contest to watch.

“I felt (the cobwebs) on the weekend. You’re a bit slow to get ball to boot. You get tackled and get done holding the ball a few times where maybe you wouldn’t three weeks in.

“It does take time to adjust to season proper. Maybe this weekend was an adjustment to that. But across the board scoring is up 25 per cent.”

Originally published as Daisy Pearce’s raw, passionate and emotional defence of AFLW following league memo