Let’s review the season in here.
We did good.
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I’m a bit disappointed, i think ther was some glaring game day coaching errors and 2 more wins were entirely reasonable.
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I would just like to say that we have a 100% winning rate when I attend games.
Highlight of my football year was sitting among the Eagles fans as we smacked them.
If only the two ladies in front had shared their cheese and bickies plate with @theDJR and I…it would have been just that extra bit special 
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I enjoyed watching the team and felt we were good enough to make the 8 but maybe just lacked a little in experience. Nexty year the goal shoule be a splod top 8. Well done!
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For a first up season I thought it was an outstanding effort.
Prespakis definitely needs someone to help shoulder the load in the middle; hopefully Nanscawen is that assistance from next season on. Between Toogood, Bannister, Scott and Alexander the forward line is plenty potent. We could use an experienced key defender to help out down back, but I thought Marshall, Van De Heuvel etc. all improved as the season went on.
Plenty to build upon. Importantly the youth looks the real deal (Scott, Clarke, Wales etc.). Excited for 2023 already!
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I agree I think that we were out coached in a few games and we should have won at least another 2 games.
I really admired the on field team. You could see in some games that the connections and trusting of others wasn’t up to speed. That will only come in time. But you can’t fault the effort of our experienced girls and the sheer determination of our newbies.
It’s been a tough year for the girls all playing 2 seasons worth of footy plus working or school/Uni. I suspect they will have learnt lots and I expect us to be better next season.
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tis pretty much it.
the easiest way to sum it up is
they were a first year club. against similar clubs they did pretty well. playing against seasoned clubs with seasoned players and coaching and tactics, it simply showed the gap.
Effort is there, toughness is there, not having paid attention to stuff outside of game day it was actually surprising to see so many of them were 18 year old and or as you say in school.
prolly 2-3 seasons away from being able to compete with the top sides if all things go well (side sticking together etc etc), as would be the case with all the new/newer clubs.
but if you look at it from the lens of first year club with 9 weeks of prep (bar nino) you’d have to be pretty impressed with most of it (coaching and tactics being the only questionable aspects for me).
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By Freya O’Donnell
In just 10 weeks, the inaugural Essendon AFLW side completed many firsts for the club, creating a rich history that will be remembered for years to come.
On August 12, 2021, the Essendon Football Club became truly whole with the AFL Commission granting an AFLW licence for the Bombers to join the competition for season seven. History had officially begun.
Natalie Wood was unveiled as the inaugural Essendon AFLW senior coach in March this year, followed by Georgia Nanscawen, who became the first ever AFLW Bomber. After that, the names came rolling in.
The Bombers signed 12 AFLW players from other clubs to their list, as well as bringing across eight players from their VFLW side, and seven coming through the draft.
The first official AFLW training session was held on June 13, with 21 players in attendance.
Bonnie Toogood and Steph Cain would become Essendon’s inaugural co-captains for season seven. With Georgia Nanscawen and Jacqui Vogt joining the leadership team.
For the first time ever the Essendon AFLW side would run out on the ground as one team. They played a practice match against expansion side Port Adelaide at the NEC Hangar on August 11, coming away victorious by 20 points.
In round one, the Bombers came up against Hawthorn, another expansion club, for the side’s first ever AFLW game. Tickets would soon sell out within a day of release, and to make history even more spectacular, the game was moved to Marvel Stadium.
Seven debutants would don the sash for the first time this season, with guernseys presented to the players on the ground in front of their families.
As the siren sounded on the eve of August 27, history was everywhere. Jess Wuetschner scored the Dons’ first ever AFLW goal, with the help of Daria Bannister and Paige Scott.
Toogood collected two goals for the game. Scott, Prespakis, Marshall and Alexander all scoring historic goals of their own.
Essendon pushed ahead in the final quarter to secure a 26-point victory over Hawthorn, sealing the Dons’ first ever AFLW victory.
After her breakout performance in round one, Paige Scott would earn Essendon’s first ever NAB Rising Star nomination.
On September 11, the team would travel to Western Australia, to come up against West Coast at Mineral Resources Park. For the first time, the Bombers were playing outside of Victoria.
The match would prove to be another historic moment for the Dons, defeating West Coast by 52-points.
At the time, round three’s fixture recorded the highest halftime score in AFLW history, as well as the most multiple goal scorers (five) in season seven.
Round four was the Dons’ first Dreamtime game, assistant coach Kirby Bentley hand painted every players’ boots to represent a unified team, and Essendon released their first ever Indigenous guernsey designed by two students from Thornbury Primary School.
The Bombers would run out in their inaugural Pride guernsey in round eight, designed by VFLW Premiership players Mia-Rae Clifford and Kendra Heil.
This year was jam-packed full of historic firsts, with many more still to come. Who will be named Essendon’s inaugural AFLW Best and Fairest? And will first year young guns Paige Scott or Steph Wales be named NAB Rising Star?
The 34 names which embodied Essendon’s first AFLW season will remain in the history books for years to come.
And the side is indebted to the families, members and fans for the history they have been a part of and the support they have given this season.
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I haven’t previously watched much AFLW because I didn’t care about the the but really enjoyed watching the Bombers this year. They never gave up and they can teach the guys something about effort.
We finished the best of all the first year teams which is probably where we’re at.
As my 7yo says “the other teams have had more practice” and it showed in the close loses, those teams just knew where each other was. That will only improve
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Same. There’s just something different about it when it’s your club. So glad they created them alongside existing clubs rather than follow the WNBA model in America, where they made up new ones from scratch (and gave them awful names straight out of the marketing department).
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Should have done AFLXW from scratch instead? That way we wouldn’t have to see unladylike tackling?
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