General AFLW comments and articles

Wuetschner > Holden (and I’m sure @PH_WARFRadio will agree)

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A lot of talk but few commitments (some are anti-committments, such as setting crowd targets higher than some ground capacities).

By Marnie Vinalll

Early this month AFLW players, clubs and the league got together to discuss how they would grow the game.

The AFL discussed marketing and fixtures, and teams presented on the upcoming season. AFL Players Association acting CEO Regan Bunny said, on the surface, the forum, was “great, good … fine”.

“But we had feedback from players afterwards around season nine, like, right, it’ll be fine. [But] what about 10 years’ time? Like, actually, ‘What are we aiming for here?’” said Bunny.

“I think we’re still a little bit short-sighted with W because we’re not entirely clear on where it needs to go.”

It’s a common query among AFLW fans: Where is the game headed? What are the goals? What’s the dream? So, The Age spoke to players, coaches, and administrators, including the new AFLW boss, and asked them to put a dreamer’s hat on while also being realistic. What should AFLW look like by 2030?

‘A big puzzle to solve’: Where, when and for how long AFLW is played

Everyone spoken to for this piece, besides the AFLW’s new general manager of women’s football Emma Moore, said by 2030 the hope was for every team to play each other once in a season. Currently, the season is 11 home-and-away games, condensed into 10 weeks, increased to 12 next year. Both the AFL’s executive general manager of football, Laura Kane, and Moore have said they won’t expand the season further until television and match-day audiences support it.

However, Bunny said getting to a season with 17 or 18 games, depending on when Tasmania come in, will be a non-negotiable in the next collective bargaining agreement, which will be in 2028.

“How we structure the two seasons, side by side [men’s and women’s] or overlapping, is going to be a challenge, particularly with cricket over the summer periods. So we need to consider that, we need to consider second tier and where does VFL[W] fit in?,” Bunny said. “That’s a big puzzle we need to solve.”

The current state league competitions run from March to July. The hope by 2030 is that the feeder comps will align with the AFLW season, giving younger and fringe players the chance to develop.

AFLW general manager Emma Moore at the recent captains’ day.
AFLW general manager Emma Moore at the recent captains’ day.CREDIT: AFL PHOTOS

Regarding season length, Moore said the AFL’s goal was to reach the targets in the current CBA.

“I also believe we’ve got to then settle on it [season dates]. We’ve got to do the work around all of these things that really matter to build it, and then we have to put some key dates in it that don’t change, and some key moments in it that don’t change because that’s what people want,” Moore said.

“Players want that stability and predictability. Clubs need that predictability and stability. AFL House needs it … but most importantly, fans, they build their rituals around this stuff.”

More rivalries and marquee clashes, held at bigger stadiums

There is also a push for more marquee games and rounds, including a potential AFLW Gather Round or State of Origin.

But Moore says, “This isn’t just about doing what the men’s do and replicating it, [it’s about] what are the ones that make absolute sense for W as a national elite game?”

The jury is still out on double-headers with the men’s competition. “It’s a different game, it’s a different fan base, it’s a different look and feel. And I’m not personally convinced that will work,” Bunny said.

However, others, such as Richmond vice captain Gabby Seymour, think it could allow for good marketing opportunities and “one-club” events.

There’s also an opportunity for storylines to develop by 2030, including rivalries. For example, as Essendon coach Natalie Wood pointed out, there’s not enough room in the current season length for all the big club clashes, such as Essendon v Collingwood or Carlton v Collingwood or Essendon v Hawthorn, to happen every year because those clubs then wouldn’t be able to play the other half of the competition.

“You can’t have Dreamtime [at the ’G], you can’t have Anzac Day, you can’t have country rounds, you can’t have Essendon v Carlton, you can’t have all these big games every year because otherwise I won’t play half the fixture,” Wood said.

Other rivalries will be given the chance to grow organically.

“And maybe some of these rivalries look the same as the men’s, but maybe some of them look different,” Seymour said. “Like, I’m thinking about ourselves [the Tigers] and Brisbane, for example; we beat them by a point on [men’s] grand final eve last year, [a big upset] and then they came out and rolled us in the finals.”

While the use of big stadiums, including the AFL-owned Marvel, hinges on TV and crowd metrics increasing, there is a hope that by 2030 larger stadiums can be used for marquee games, while smaller grounds would still be used where appropriate.

Seymour said players enjoy playing at smaller home grounds, such as Punt Road for Richmond and Windy Hill for Essendon, because they promote a lively atmosphere, while larger stadiums provide pristine conditions “giving the game the best opportunity to be of an excellent standard”.

“If you don’t host a premier competition at sort of premier stadiums and facilities, then I’m not sure what outcome setting yourself up to as well,” said Seymour.

“If we go back to the fan [experience] as well … if you’re going to watch an elite-level competition, there’s sort of an expectation of it being at an elite facility as well.”

Resources increased to meet player needs

At club level, the other dream, Wood said, was being able to adequately meet the needs of the players regarding resources and coaching, as player pay and hours have increased more quickly than the club resources that support them.

“You stretch one area and then, all of a sudden, another area feels like it’s sort of lagging. So the players getting their 12-month contracts, getting paid across the 12 months within their contract, their hours increasing, their ability to be athletes really increased, but our capacity within clubs, within the soft cap, to meet the demands of the players hasn’t grown at the same rate,” Wood said.

For example, assistant coaches are still part-time.

“We need to be able to set our staffing structures up within clubs that meet the needs of the players and at the minute, our experience is that that’s not quite aligned, and it’s hard to find the right people for the jobs with the right … culture fit, the right skill set,” Wood said.

“They’ve also got to have flexibility within their current job. Or they’ve also got to have remuneration in other places that they don’t need this compensated for as much. So all of a sudden, your pool of people is getting quite reduced.”

Essendon coach Natalie Wood addressing her players.
Essendon coach Natalie Wood addressing her players.CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES

Further to this, more players will retire and pursue careers within the systems, whether that’s in coaching or other areas of football departments, to widen that pool. The AFLW has just three of its former players as coaches, Port Adelaide’s Lauren Arnell, West Coast’s Daisy Pearce and Fremantle’s Lisa Webb.

“And so you can imagine, in 2030 and beyond, when you’ve got recruiters, media people, heads [of football], that have had these lived experiences in growing the game, the game is going to be much richer for it,” said Wood.

To make Chloe Molloy a household name

The quality of the broadcast is still a sticking point, says Bunny, noting the flow-on effects for the marketing of the game, which she’d like to see improved by 2030.

Commentator and former player Kate McCarthy told this masthead last year that suburban grounds were not usually hardwired for broadcasting, which made it difficult to cover those games and led to a poorer quality broadcast.

McCarthy said one game between Hawthorn and the Bulldogs at Box Hill City Oval last season would have been “been almost unwatchable” because of heavy rain and dire conditions.

“The cameras are so far away, you can’t actually cut the vision down like you can with the men’s to get a really good snapshot [of football acts such as tackles or goals] that you can then reshare [on social media],” said Bunny.

She said addressing these issues would attract more people to the game and connect fans with players, helping to make players such as Chloe Molloy household names.

Similarly, Seymour added, she’d like to see “more displays of skill”.

“I think they [the AFL] do a good job at the moment of tapping into people’s sense of belonging or inclusion … that legacy kind of space. But I think elite sport thrives because people are amazed. So yeah, if I was doing the marketing, I would be trying to showcase how amazing it is,” Seymour said.

‘Increased physical and mental capacity’ to go harder, for longer

By 2030 Seymour hopes to see a more offensive style of footy. “I think as that skill level continues to develop, we then see the progression of that is a more offensive, more free-flowing kind of game that also allows for more intricacies in game plans.”

While the AFLW still has a significant number of “cross-coders”, who came from different sports in the early days of the competition, girls who enter the system now have been nurtured all the way through the football development pathway.

Webb, who spends a lot of time watching under-18s women’s, said she’s “blown away with the amount of talent coming through”, who in five years will be mid-20s AFLW players. She noted this will lead “increased scoring” but also to a better quality of game. For example, their “ability to run really good patterns is quite exceptional, and their flexibility to play across multiple lines”.

Wood added that the physical attributes of the athletes would improve, along with being able to perform the basics under fatigue, with “greater capacity to understand the nuances and the different tactical strings that we could pull at different times”.

“Players have always probably had a good, strong skill set, but now with that increased physical capacity and mental capacity that they can now do what they do for longer and at higher intensity,” Wood said.

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4th
3 x 8th
2 x worse than 8th

2 posts were merged into an existing topic: AFLW 2024 - non-Essendon matches

Even when we are not-breaking-news, Essendon is the only way to promote anything.

(Also covers engineer Steph Cain.)

Essendon forward Sophie Alexander doesn’t intend to hang up her paramedic gear any time soon, despite the AFLW’s move to greater professionalism.

As hours and pay go up, some players have wanted to transition into a full-time professional football lifestyle, but Alexander has resisted.

Essendon forward Sophie Alexander is a paramedic.
Essendon forward Sophie Alexander is a paramedic.CREDIT: JASON SOUTH

“I’ve always thought it’s so important [having another job or career pursuit], not only for something at the end of footy, but to get you through footy. Because if footy is your world, and you have a bad game, or you’re not getting picked, like, the world crashes,” said Alexander.

When the league was introduced in 2017, about 60 per cent of AFLW players held full-time jobs, according to data from the AFL Players Association’s Insights and Impactreport. That number has dropped dramatically to 16 per cent as of last year, with 36 per cent of players working part-time jobs to supplement their footballing income.

Under the 2023 collective bargaining agreement, the average AFLW player pay rose to $60,000, up from $46,000. It will rise to $82,000 by 2027.

Alexander works part-time during the AFLW season and full-time during the off-season. During the season, that is two or so paramedic shifts, including one that is a night after a day training session.

Does she find that manageable? “I prefer it,” she says. “I just came back from two weeks’ leave, and I nearly went mad because I didn’t have that outlet.

“Early days in my career, I was finding my feet, so I was getting dropped and injuries and just adjusting to footy world, and I didn’t have work, so it really affected me in that sense and then when I started working, yeah, just put so much into perspective,” said Alexander.

“When I’m at footy, footy is my world. And then when I’m away from footy, if I’m at work, it’s work … But if I didn’t have work, I’d be at home thinking about footy. I’d be, whatever I’m doing, thinking about footy. You just go insane.”

However, Alexander notes the difficulty in finding careers that are flexible enough to complement the demands of an elite football career.

Alexander’s teammate and Bombers co-captain Steph Cain, who has a dual career as a project engineer in construction, said one of the next big challenges the league faced was how to maintain a life balance outside football for players entering the system, whether that included work or study.

“Particularly for these young 18-year-olds, they’ve now got the flexibility to not have to work the way that I did,” said Cain, 28, and an inaugural AFLW player.

Cain pointed out that when players were drafted, if they still lived at home, there was the option with a substantial base salary to invest all their time and energy into football.

“It’s like, how do we then get the balance in their lifestyle … so when that they come out of the system, or they’re still in the system, and they’re working through it, that their mind isn’t fully immersed in football because, from a mental aspect, that can be seriously challenging, when you put everything into football and then, you know, it may not be working out the way that you want it.”

Essendon AFLW player Sophie Alexander.

Regan Bunny, who spoke to this masthead while acting CEO of the AFLPA, said as the league transitioned into being professional, they were seeing a drop-off in players working and studying because they were getting paid enough not to.

While this has its drawcards, it also poses challenges with football prioritised over long-time career ambitions, instead of aligned.

Having dual careers and identities is something really distinct to the AFLW that needs to be held on to, said Bunny.

“It’s interesting, starting to see a little bit of shift with the AFL [men’s] players in that, particularly those that are later in their career going. ‘■■■■, you know, I probably got a couple of seasons left in me. What am I going to do?’” said Bunny.

“So we’re thinking about how we front end load that with them so they’ve got some sort of career identity outside of football right from the start.

“So I think maintaining what we’ve got through W will be really, really important.”

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AFLW R1 Crowds
Sydney Swans v Collingwood - 5,489
West Coast Eagles v Richmond - 2,166
GWS Giants v Western Bulldogs - 2,003
Essendon v Fremantle - 2,820
Gold Coast Suns v St Kilda - 1,749
Geelong Cats v Melbourne - 3,838
Port Adelaide v Adelaide Crows - 5,194
Hawthorn v Carlton - 2,794
Brisbane Lions v North Melbourne - 3,395

Total: 29,448

Saw some bits and pieces over the weekend. Pretty entertaining to watch on the telly and the umps seem to let play keep going rather than ball up every 10 seconds like the men’s. Maybe only play the GF at a proper stadium as it wasn’t good look with absolutely no one behind the goals in the games played in stadiums. The games played at “country” type grounds with families all around the boundaries looked much better.

We play Melbourne this year.

AFL (vaguely) confirming the rumours of pushing the season start forward by up to a month.

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AFL confirm our Week 10 match-up against Fark Carlton will be Saturday night November 2nd 7:15pm at IKON Park.

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Sick way to start a long weekend.

I hate FARK CARLTON but that Princess Park area during late spring is really nice.

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I was just about to sook about that… trying to make other bookings around that.

Don’t be ■■■■, Pies.

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Jamiee Lambert gets her one match ban for rough conduct over-turned. Will play versus Casey… hence boooooooooooo.

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That is a great mark by Butler.
Not so good a set shot, though.

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Great mark running back with the ball by Lauren Butler.

Misses; there is a significant wind across the ground.

BLOW THE SIREN
END THE GAME

2-2

These umps are… very lazy when it comes to playing frees against Port.

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Very very lazy.

Pie dragged down off the ball twenty metres out.

Combined score is 1.9…