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My tip is soccer participation will soar on the back of this World Cup with so many boys and girls wanting to choose soccer over Australian Rules football and parents will probably want to steer them in that direction because it is far less of a contact sport than our own national game.

AFL football is in a constant state of flux with rule changes and interpretations of the rules rendering our game totally confusing to the purests, AFL coaches and expert commentators. The risks of serious injury and concussion in our game is a serious problem because coaches are constantly calling for more interchange but even putting a cap on rotations has done little to curb the ridiculous congestion in our game.

Soccer on the other hand never changes the rules the only change has been the introduction of VAR which I think is a good thing.

In particular if our most talented young male athletes start choosing soccer over AFL football then watch out we might finally become a force to be reckoned with on the world stage.

The commentators mentioned after Saturday nights game the federal government committed 12 million a few years ago to the Australian women's team compared with the 240 million they have already committed to build a stadium for Tasmania's new AFL team. So already there is big pressure on the government to invest a shed load more coin in soccer.

My prediction is it's only a matter of time before soccer becomes the number one sport in Australia, and the cherry on top is you can represent your country unlike AFL. That mickey mouse Gaelic series doesn't count.

Agree DD, Soccer (football) seems to get more involved at grass roots level, something the AFL seems to have little interest in past the 18's and a maybe the 16's. It's left to the state leagues to do the heavy lift in the younger brackets, state leagues that are starved of funding while shedloads of money gets diverted to the AFL expansion clubs and the struggling Melbourne based clubs and unsustainable projects like a Tas team, then there's the AFLW, but that comp is at least attracting young girls to the game but as you said, soccer with it's international appeal will certainly cut deep into that group.

Aust to win 2 -1 ....Sam Kerr scoring a double

Great effort to make the semi finals. 
With 7.2 million watching,last night.
Can see why the Poms have only lost one of the last 32,matches.
Go Spain.

The Pomms were clinical disciplined and better skilled in the end. More physical as well, got away with a fair bit due to the Yank ref being very lenient, needed the Columbian Ref from the qtr final. But the best team won on the night, highlight was the screamer by Kerr, absolute class, but then fluffed a gimme in the box which would have tied it up again, unfortunately too many of the girls had off nights whereas the Pomms were strong right across the board, maybe they played their final against the Frogs.

Best result by any Australian team in the history of the game, so hopefully the Tilly's will see it that way.

Senior Seagull wrote:

The Pomms were clinical disciplined and better skilled in the end. More physical as well, got away with a fair bit due to the Yank ref being very lenient, needed the Columbian Ref from the qtr final. But the best team won on the night, highlight was the screamer by Kerr, absolute class, but then fluffed a gimme in the box which would have tied it up again, unfortunately too many of the girls had off nights whereas the Pomms were strong right across the board, maybe they played their final against the Frogs.

Best result by any Australian team in the history of the game, so hopefully the Tilly's will see it that way.

Well summarised SS. Didn't watch it all but agree the pommy sheilas looked a class above our girls. Maybe our 120 minute marathon, 10 shot penalty took too much out of the girls plus the poms had an extra 24 hours to recover which is massive when you are talking about the difference between a 4 and 5 day break. AFL coaches go on about having only a 6 day break.

And now only a 3 day break before the bronze medal playoff. There seemed to be about a week in between the group matches so it seems quite bizarre.

Kerr's calf probably sealed the Matilda's fate in this tournament.