I was at the AFL match between Adelaide and West Coast earlier this year when the Women's national football championships were in Adelaide.  At half-time highlights were shown as well as the state teams parade on the field.  All good stuff, though some of the highlights showed big hits and bumps that were effectively charging and seemingly serious injuries and there were some clearly injured players in the parade.   People in the crowd commented it'd be good if the Crows went in hard like the women.

My point is I wonder whether women's football has an even bigger future if there is modification of the rules.  Wouldn't this attract many of the women currently playing soccer and netball/basketball - if you could have all the skills but not be flattened by a hefty hip and shoulder?  Be interesting to see what the women currently competing in the international cup think.

In Ireland Women's Gaelic Football is huge in participation numbers and may one day rival the men's code.  But it does not have the bump unlike men's Gaelic football - and is probably a more fast slick version of Gaelic partly for that reason (also the ball can be picked directly from the ground unlike in men's Gaelic football).  I wonder if the participation rates would be that high if there was the bump? 

Women's Rugby has participants but seems to hit a threshold of those willing to risk serious injury.  I fear that Australian Women's footy could hit a similar ceiling without at least some slight modification.

Anyway perhaps I'll be howled down for being discriminatory.  I am actually also in favour of minimising the bump in men's footy too - and glad to see the AFL rules committee has come a fair way in this regard for player safety.

Solomons and Vanuatu do certainly look good things to debut at IC14 in mens, and Vanuatu in particular might be a chance in womens too.

re womens footy and mod'd rules, there was also the issue not long back about getting a mod'd jumper more suitable for girls/women.

Some even bigger predictions out of the International Development Forum held yesterday - full report to come.

O'k Brett I'm interested............

Haha!  Tobie has a full report which I'll have up as soon as I've done two million other things.