I thought I might make a few quick notes…
This season was substantially impacted by NSW being a non-footy state. With the AFLW teams of Sydney and GWS unable to find quality competition, the AFL brought them into the VFL. That saw them play all of the AFLW-affiliated teams (i.e. not Willy, who in recent years had featured a handful of GWS players, and not Darebin) over a five week period, for premiership points.
It’s not entirely new – the NT Thunder team was strongly affiliated with the Crows AFLW team in 2018 and 2019. The difference there was they played the entire season and there was certainly an over-arching goal to increase NT representation in the AFL(W) world. My memory fails me, but I’m going to guess the AFLW was highlighted over the NT in 2018 (reached finals, had the highest percentage) and the NT talent got more focus in 2019 (finished 5-9, just behind us).
You can see their squad at the below link – it includes a 17yo Bella Clarke.
https://www.ntthunder.com.au/football/vfl-womens/player-profiles/
The difference is that back then there was a cap of 10 AFLW players in any given game (of 23; it was only in 2021 that the VFLW created space on the ground by dropping to 16 on the ground at any time). This year, the AFL said “screw the credibility of the VFLW competition” and allowed these teams to play as many AFLW players as they liked. In one game Sydney did play 100% AFLW players.
This of course resulted in some incredible blow-outs. In their first four games, before they faced a similarly-AFLW-stacked Pies, the Swans recorded a 299 point lead on their opponents.
At one point, the Sydney AFLW coach felt the need to publicly abuse the actual VFLW clubs for not playing similarly-rigged teams.
Some teams (e.g. Norf) chose to play almost no AFLW players.
The AFL did two things:
- they didn’t cap the number of AFLW players outside of the five weeks that GWS and Sydney featured
- they quietly objected when one team (Fark Carlton) grossly abused the VFLW competition by playing as many as 17 AFLW players after AFLW training had started and by convention everyone else had withdrawn their players. FCFC told the AFL to go forth and multiply, and continued doing as they pleased.
As noted, teams had notably varying approaches to the inclusion of their own AFLW players. This was part of the reason the early half of the season saw some wildly varying results. The Hawks played significant numbers of quality AFLW players (e.g. Bates, Fleming) and as is their style still had many veterans and/or ex-AFLW filling the other spots. That gave them a huge start to the season, including beating Casey 122-14 in round one.
Perhaps result of the year was in round 6, when eventual wooden spooners Geelong spanked (? eventual premiers ?) Norf 59-35 (who DID have the likes of Barba, DiCosmo, Rhodes, Tierney, Paterno, Scott, Slaney, Jones, Dojiok). Sometimes you just gotta shrug.
2023 had been a bit of an ugly season – the introduction of four new AFLW teams abruptly sucked a large amount of top talent out of the VFLW, and the top players can have an out-sized influence on scoring in this league. But the churning of small lists has returned a chunk of them to raise standards.
The other huge change to the league arose from Collingwood’s hatred of their womens’ teams. They cut their basketball team and they tried to get rid of their VFLW team in the exact same way as Richmond did previously: both were flush with money post-premiership, with Richmond “successfully” selling the farm to Port Melbourne and the Pies failing to do so to Williamstown.
Understandably, there was a mass walkout from the Pie team as a result – they kept just one player from the 2023 season! Some teams benefited moreso from this: Norf took on 8 refugees, including Dojiok and Zander. Darebin also benefitted significantly, claiming Pie captain Bunker and Monique DeMatteeeeeeooooooooooooooooooooo (who would ultimately top the goal-kicking ladder and drag the Falcons to a series of wins after some miserable years). That included her kicking 5 goals against the Dogs in round 12.
Here’s our 2024 list (I’ve omitted any AFLW player who did not play).
The ages are as of when I write this; Gallagher’s birthdate is unknown but at some point this year she was 22yo. Her height is also approximate.
There were zero VFLW-listed players dating before 2023 – Grace Dicker did the pre-season and played for us in Darwin in January, and then disappeared on list announcement eve.
MORCS remains the sole player to represent our VFLW team in every season.
| # | Full name | Type | AGE | HEIGHT | 2024 games |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Emily Gough | AFLW | 18 | 180 | 3 |
| 5 | Georgia Nanscawen | AFLW | 32 | 162 | 2 |
| 10 | Sienna Hobbs | junior | 17 | 179 | 1 |
| 12 | Lavina Cox | junior | 18 | 172 | 1 |
| 13 | Lily-Rose Williamson | AFLW | 19 | 166 | 4 |
| 14 | Ellyse Gamble | AFLW | 26 | 180 | 2 |
| 15 | Chloe Adams | AFLW | 18 | 165 | 3 |
| 16 | Matilda Dyke | AFLW | 22 | 181 | 3 |
| 17 | Georgia Clarke | AFLW | 24 | 177 | 2 |
| 19 | Gabby Drage | junior | 18 | 173 | 1 |
| 22 | Amelia Radford | AFLW | 28 | 168 | 1 |
| 23 | Amy Gaylor | AFLW | 18 | 170 | 4 |
| 25 | Alex Morcom | AFLW | 27 | 166 | 3 |
| 26 | Ash van Loon | AFLW | 19 | 172 | 3 |
| 28 | Mia Busch | AFLW | 20 | 167 | 3 |
| 30 | Stephanie Wales | AFLW | 21 | 188 | 3 |
| 41 | Amy Caris-Brett | - | 19 | 166 | 3 |
| 42 | Maddison Ford | - | 20 | 174 | 15 |
| 43 | Olivia Manfre | - | 20 | 168 | 10 |
| 45 | Sarah Ford | - | 28 | 160 | 14 |
| 46 | Kyla Tracey | - | 20 | 161 | 1 |
| 47 | Christina Bernardi | - | 33 | 167 | 4 |
| 48 | Madison Gray | - | 20 | 168 | - |
| 49 | Emily Tassiopoulos | - | 20 | 172 | 9 |
| 50 | Krystal Russell | - | 19 | 180 | 4 |
| 51 | Drew Ryan | - | 21 | 172 | 15 |
| 52 | Jayda Richardson | - | 20 | 174 | 9 |
| 54 | Kalani Scoullar | - | 20 | 190 | - |
| 55 | Sarah Perkins | - | 30 | 173 | 5 |
| 56 | Manaia Huta | - | 22 | 160 | 6 |
| 57 | Tayla Crabtree | - | 18 | 161 | 1 |
| 58 | Chloe Prpic | - | 20 | 169 | 6 |
| 59 | Tayla Hart-Aluni | - | 23 | 165 | 8 |
| 60 | Jaimee-Lee Morrow | - | 31 | 177 | 11 |
| 61 | Eloise Chaston | - | 22 | 169 | 15 |
| 62 | Ava Jordan | - | 19 | 150 | 8 |
| 63 | Lily Bateman | - | 20 | 169 | 13 |
| 64 | Ashlea Melnikas | - | 29 | 168 | 15 |
| 65 | Karly McNeice | - | 25 | 170 | 1 |
| 66 | Emily Gallagher | - | 22 | 181 | 2 |
| 67 | Maddison Shaw | - | 22 | 163 | - |
| 68 | Scarlett Orritt | - | 20 | 169 | 10 |
| 70 | Isabelle Porter | - | 26 | 167 | 12 |
| 71 | Lily den Houting | - | 22 | 169 | - |
| 72 | Ruby Murdoch | - | 19 | 165 | 3 |
| 73 | Sophie Molan | - | 23 | 175 | 12 |
| 75 | Ellie Huggard | - | 30 | 166 | 8 |
| 76 | Danielle Marshall | - | 32 | 168 | 4 |
| 77 | Tia Davidge | - | 19 | 168 | 15 |
| 78 | Ruby Mahony | - | 24 | 165 | 15 |
| 79 | Bailey Hunt | - | 27 | 171 | 8 |
| 80 | Marnie Robinson | - | 19 | 173 | 12 |
We almost used every single player on our VFLW list:
- Madison Gray, who played 8 games last year, did feature in Darwin (wearing #23, ‘cause why not?)
- Kalani Scoullar played the two practice matches (the first in #74). Not sure if she got injured, but she had to beat rucks in Morrow, Russell, and (briefly) Wales, plus the pretend ruck of Richardson.
- Maddison Shaw was one of our best players in Darwin (by 22yo she had already played 36 games of VFLW). She got injured, and her appearances after that were restricted to a couple emergency listings.
- Lily den Houting – no game time!
Special credit also goes to our Tiwi “top-up” players in Darwin who helped up versus the NTFLW representative team:
- #4 Kimberley Cunningham
- #10 Maria Rioli
- #34 Freda Puruntatameri – who played 3 games for us in 2019
- #39 Jamie-Lee Puautjimi
- #48 Gloriana Luta
We lost a LOT of top-level players this year:
- Courtney Ugle
- Grace Dicker
- Meg Ryan
- Tamsin Crook
- Bella Clarke
- Mia-Rae Clifford
- Kendra Heil
- Reese Sutton
- Zoe Hurrell
- Alana Barba
- Joanne Doonan
- Eloise Ashley-Cooper
- Renee Tierney
I’m pretty sure Paige Scott would have played if not for ill-timed injury, too.
You retain those players (minus Kendra) and I am definitely not writing this season review this early. Some of them (notably Ugle, Crook, Clarke, Barba, Ashley-Cooper, and Tierney) are dominating elsewhere, and some have disappeared entirely (notably Dicker, Sutton, and Doonan).
Coming off a 2023 where we also lost huge amounts of experience, it looked like we might have a list of kids and no leadership. But we did really well in building the list, including adding VFLW veterans in Melnikas/Shaw/McNeice/Porter, legends in Perkins and Bernardi, and a rash of interstate pick-ups (the return of Sarah Ford from Sydney, the good-to-go Ruby Mahony from Perth, and Novacastrian junior Marnie Robinson).
In the end our game-day-average-age was marginally up on last year’s bottoming out. We were still notably younger/less experienced than many other teams.
| Year | 2018 | 2019 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Average age | 24.81 | 25.31 | 25.32 | 26.26 | 22.99 | 23.21 |
| Players this year | 38 | 43 | 36 | 36 | 49 | 49 |
| Players ever | 37 | 63 | 80 | 97 | 130 | 151 |
| New players | 37 | 26 | 17 | 17 | 33 | 21 |
We actually ended up with a mature squad, but then a large portion of those mature players weren’t available for large parts of the year:
- Shaw – no games
- McNeice – 1 game
- Marshall – 3 games
- Bernardi – 4 games
- Perkins – 5 games
- Huggard – 8 games
- Hunt – 8 games
So the obvious follow-up to the above was to graph the percentage of ‘Best 22’ who played across the season… and I had posted a Best 22 pre-season and a Best 22 mid-season, so easy right?
No, not easy. Which in this case was a good thing.
PRE-SEASON:
| B | Maddison Ford | Karly McNeice |
| Marnie Robinson | Danielle Marshall | Bailey Hunt |
| Isabelle Porter | Eloise Chaston | Sarah Ford |
| Kyla Tracey | Olivia Manfre | Tayla Hart-Aluni |
| F | Sarah Perkins | Christina Bernardi |
| Krystal Russell | Ruby Mahony | Sophie Molan |
| INT | Jaimee-Lee Morrow | Maddison Shaw |
| Chloe Prpic | Tia Davidge | Manaia Huta |
MID-SEASON (before round 8):
| B | Maddison Ford | Karly McNeice |
| Marnie Robinson | Danielle Marshall | Bailey Hunt |
| Ellie Huggard | Eloise Chaston | Drew Ryan |
| Tayla Hart-Aluni | Jayda Richardson | Tia Davidge |
| F | Sarah Perkins | Christina Bernardi |
| Krystal Russell | Ruby Mahony | Sophie Molan |
| INT | Jaimee-Lee Morrow | Maddison Shaw |
| Ashlea Melnikas | Isabelle Porter | Sarah Ford |
POST-SEASON:
| B | Maddison Ford | Lily Bateman |
| Isabelle Porter | Danielle Marshall | Sophie Molan |
| Ellie Huggard | Eloise Chaston | Drew Ryan |
| Tayla Hart-Aluni | Jayda Richardson | Emily Tassiopoulos |
| F | Sarah Perkins | Christina Bernardi |
| Jaimee-Lee Morrow | Ruby Mahony | Ashlea Melnikas |
| INT | Olivia Manfre | Tia Davidge |
| Scarlett Orritt | Bailey Hunt | Sarah Ford |
Unsurprisingly the later Best 22s are more “correct”, but the main point is that you can see all three lines escalating as the season progresses.
Here are some of the milestones for us this year.
YEARS OF SERVICE
- Alex Morcom 6 (i.e. every season)
25 GAMES
- El Chaston (after 14 with us)
- Tia Davidge
- Liv Manfre
- Bailey Hunt (after 8 with us)
- Isabelle Porter (after 13 with us)
- Jamiee-Lee Morrow (after 12 with us)
EFC VFLW DEBUTANT
- Ashlea Melnikas
- Karly McNeice
- Isabelle Porter
- Sarah Perkins
- Bailey Hunt
- Ellie Huggard
- Ruby Mahony
- Marnie Robinson
- Christina Bernardi
- Emily Tassiopoulos
- Ava Jordan
- Kyla Tracey
- Lily-Rose Williamson
- Amy Gaylor
- Emily Gough
- Chloe Adams
- Matilda Dyke
- Amy Caris-Brett
- Ruby Murdoch
- Emily Gallagher
- Sienna Hobbs
- Lavina Cox
- Gabby Drage
- Tayla Crabtree
FIFTY WINS
- Well, we didn’t actually get to our 50th win. But if you count the draws, we’re now at 50.5 from 94 games.
Basic stats (averages, except for scoring) are below.
FP* = AFL Fantasy Points, without frees for and against because I’m not going through every individual game to count them.
| Player | Type | FP* | Games | D | G | B | K | H | M | T | HO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stephanie Wales | AFLW | 102 | 3 | 18.3 | - | - | 9.3 | 9.0 | 6.3 | 3.7 | 22.7 |
| Georgia Nanscawen | AFLW | 87 | 2 | 23.5 | - | - | 10.0 | 13.5 | 2.0 | 6.0 | - |
| Bailey Hunt | - | 86 | 8 | 16.1 | 3 | 1 | 11.1 | 5.0 | 4.1 | 7.0 | 0.1 |
| Kodi Jacques | AFLW | 85 | 2 | 22.5 | - | 1 | 9.5 | 13.0 | 2.5 | 5.5 | - |
| Mia Busch | AFLW | 83 | 3 | 19.6 | - | 2 | 12.3 | 7.3 | 2.3 | 6.0 | - |
| Ruby Mahony | - | 77 | 15 | 19.0 | 2 | - | 7.7 | 11.3 | 1.7 | 6.4 | - |
| Matilda Dyke | AFLW | 75 | 3 | 17.3 | 1 | - | 5.3 | 12.0 | 1.0 | 4.3 | 13.0 |
| Amelia Radford | AFLW | 75 | 1 | 17.0 | - | - | 12.0 | 5.0 | 3.0 | 5.0 | - |
| Chloe Adams | AFLW | 73 | 3 | 17.4 | 1 | 1 | 9.7 | 7.7 | 2.0 | 5.0 | - |
| Alex Morcom | AFLW | 71 | 3 | 15.7 | - | - | 12.7 | 3.0 | 3.7 | 4.0 | - |
| El Chaston | - | 71 | 15 | 17.1 | 2 | - | 12.0 | 5.1 | 3.0 | 3.6 | 0.1 |
| Emily Gough | AFLW | 69 | 3 | 13.7 | 4 | 2 | 9.7 | 4.0 | 3.7 | 3.0 | - |
| Ashlea Melnikas | - | 67 | 15 | 15.6 | 2 | 4 | 8.8 | 6.8 | 2.1 | 4.9 | - |
| Lily-Rose Williamson | AFLW | 62 | 4 | 14.8 | - | 3 | 8.0 | 6.8 | 2.8 | 3.8 | - |
| Sophie Molan | - | 60 | 12 | 15.3 | 2 | - | 7.9 | 7.4 | 2.6 | 3.1 | - |
| Ellie Huggard | - | 59 | 8 | 12.1 | - | - | 7.8 | 4.3 | 3.4 | 4.1 | - |
| Krystal Russell | - | 57 | 4 | 7.6 | - | - | 1.8 | 5.8 | 0.3 | 3.5 | 25.3 |
| Amy Gaylor | AFLW | 57 | 4 | 14.6 | 1 | - | 7.3 | 7.3 | 2.0 | 3.3 | - |
| Christina Bernardi | - | 56 | 4 | 10.8 | 2 | 1 | 6.0 | 4.8 | 1.8 | 5.0 | - |
| Tayla Crabtree | - | 55 | 1 | 11.0 | - | - | 7.0 | 4.0 | 2.0 | 5.0 | - |
| Jayda Richardson | - | 54 | 9 | 9.9 | 6 | 2 | 4.8 | 5.1 | 1.8 | 3.4 | 5.8 |
| Scarlett Orritt | - | 53 | 10 | 8.6 | 2 | 3 | 6.3 | 2.3 | 1.9 | 5.6 | - |
| Jaimee-Lee Morrow | - | 52 | 11 | 7.8 | - | 1 | 4.3 | 3.5 | 0.6 | 2.2 | 21.9 |
| Danielle Marshall | - | 52 | 4 | 10.6 | - | - | 8.3 | 2.3 | 4.5 | 2.3 | - |
| Ash Van Loon | AFLW | 51 | 3 | 13.4 | - | - | 4.7 | 8.7 | 2.0 | 3.3 | - |
| Maddison Ford | - | 50 | 15 | 13.1 | - | 1 | 7.7 | 5.4 | 3.4 | 1.4 | 0.1 |
| Emily Tassiopoulos | - | 50 | 9 | 8.3 | 4 | 1 | 5.3 | 3.0 | 1.3 | 5.3 | - |
| Lavina Cox | junior | 47 | 1 | 18.0 | - | - | 4.0 | 14.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | - |
| Georgia Clarke | AFLW | 45 | 2 | 14.0 | - | - | 5.5 | 8.5 | 2.5 | 1.0 | - |
| Isabelle Porter | - | 44 | 12 | 10.8 | 1 | - | 6.0 | 4.8 | 2.7 | 1.9 | - |
| Amy Cariss-Brett | - | 43 | 3 | 12.0 | 1 | - | 8.3 | 3.7 | 2.0 | 0.7 | - |
| Olivia Manfre | - | 43 | 10 | 6.7 | 9 | 6 | 4.3 | 2.4 | 2.0 | 3.3 | - |
| Tayla Hart-Aluni | - | 43 | 8 | 8.4 | 3 | 3 | 5.1 | 3.3 | 2.0 | 3.0 | - |
| Drew Ryan | - | 41 | 15 | 10.6 | 1 | 4 | 5.9 | 4.7 | 1.8 | 1.9 | - |
| Sarah Ford | - | 40 | 14 | 10.4 | 2 | - | 6.5 | 3.9 | 1.4 | 2.0 | - |
| Tia Davidge | - | 40 | 15 | 7.4 | 8 | 7 | 5.7 | 1.7 | 2.3 | 2.3 | - |
| Ava Jordan | - | 37 | 8 | 8.7 | 1 | 2 | 3.9 | 4.8 | 1.0 | 2.8 | - |
| Sarah Perkins | - | 34 | 5 | 6.8 | 5 | 5 | 5.4 | 1.4 | 2.2 | 0.2 | 1.0 |
| Lily Bateman | - | 33 | 13 | 6.9 | - | - | 4.0 | 2.9 | 2.5 | 2.0 | - |
| Marnie Robinson | - | 33 | 12 | 7.4 | - | 1 | 4.9 | 2.5 | 2.1 | 1.8 | - |
| Chloe Prpic | - | 33 | 6 | 8.0 | - | 1 | 4.3 | 3.7 | 2.3 | 1.3 | - |
| Emily Gallagher | - | 33 | 2 | 3.0 | - | - | 1.5 | 1.5 | - | 3.0 | 13.0 |
| Manaia Huta | - | 28 | 6 | 5.5 | - | 2 | 4.3 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 2.2 | - |
| Ruby Murdoch | - | 28 | 3 | 8.0 | - | - | 5.7 | 2.3 | 0.7 | 1.0 | - |
| Ellyse Gamble | AFLW | 25 | 2 | 5.5 | - | - | 3.0 | 2.5 | 1.0 | 2.0 | - |
| Karly McNiece | - | 23 | 1 | 6.0 | - | - | 5.0 | 1.0 | 2.0 | - | - |
| Kyla Tracey | - | 23 | 1 | 6.0 | - | - | 4.0 | 2.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | - |
| Sienna Hobbs | junior | 17 | 1 | 3.0 | - | - | 2.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | - | 6.0 |
| Gabby Drage | junior | 10 | 1 | 1.0 | - | - | 1.0 | - | 1.0 | 1.0 | - |
It’s a reasonable visual demonstration of what should happen when the Bin Chickens play 21 AFLW-listed players (or FCFC 14 vs 0)… though in the case of FCFC we made them look (?) pretty damn poor.
Centre “Bounce” Attendances across all games. It tells you a bit about our (varying) approach throughout the year – and that a large proportion of our AFLW players spent all their time inside, even if that hasn’t been the case at AFLW level.
| Player | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | Σ | Ave |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Matilda Dyke | 18 | 6 | 16 | 40 | 13.3 | ||||||||||||
| Alex Morcom | 10 | 4 | 14 | 28 | 9.3 | ||||||||||||
| Ruby Mahony | 12 | 10 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 16 | 9 | 9 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 5 | 5 | 8 | 11 | 131 | 8.7 |
| Kodi Jacques | 8 | 9 | 17 | 8.5 | |||||||||||||
| Jaimee-Lee Morrow | 4 | 9 | 6 | 2 | 9 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 9 | 9 | 12 | 84 | 7.6 | ||||
| Georgia Nanscawen | 8 | 7 | 15 | 7.5 | |||||||||||||
| Ashlea Melnikas | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 17 | 8 | 13 | 9 | 6 | 9 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 12 | 113 | 7.5 |
| Bailey Hunt | 6 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 14 | 51 | 6.4 | ||||||||
| Stephanie Wales | 7 | 5 | 7 | 19 | 6.3 | ||||||||||||
| Amelia Radford | 6 | 6 | 6.0 | ||||||||||||||
| Krystal Russell | 12 | 6 | 5 | 1 | 24 | 6.0 | |||||||||||
| Chloe Adams | 8 | 5 | 3 | 16 | 5.3 | ||||||||||||
| Mia Busch | 3 | 4 | 6 | 13 | 4.3 | ||||||||||||
| Emily Gallagher | 3 | 5 | 8 | 4.0 | |||||||||||||
| Sienna Hobbs | 4 | 4 | 4.0 | ||||||||||||||
| Sarah Ford | 10 | 1 | 8 | 8 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 42 | 3.0 | ||||||
| Amy Gaylor | 3 | 9 | 12 | 3.0 | |||||||||||||
| Ava Jordan | 4 | 1 | 9 | 9 | 1 | 24 | 3.0 | ||||||||||
| El Chaston | 2 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 11 | 10 | 4 | 1 | 41 | 2.7 | ||||||
| Christina Bernardi | 7 | 2 | 9 | 2.3 | |||||||||||||
| Jayda Richardson | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 15 | 1.7 | ||||||||||
| Tia Davidge | 6 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 21 | 1.4 | |||||||||
| Sophie Molan | 5 | 3 | 7 | 15 | 1.3 | ||||||||||||
| Lily-Rose Williamson | 3 | 2 | 5 | 1.3 | |||||||||||||
| Ash van Loon | 4 | 4 | 1.3 | ||||||||||||||
| Emily Gough | 2 | 2 | 0.7 | ||||||||||||||
| Ellie Huggard | 3 | 2 | 5 | 0.6 | |||||||||||||
| Isabelle Porter | 3 | 3 | 0.3 | ||||||||||||||
| Scarlett Orritt | 1 | 1 | 0.1 |
Stats Leaders after H&A (league leader, our top five, honourable mentions).
Apart from goals, the numbers below are averages… but the rankings are sorted by totals. Positions are as at the end of the H&A, but for Essendon players the average/total is after our final.
Disposals
1 - Ange Gogos (Falcons) 22.5
3 - RUBY MAHONY 19.1
Just outside 10 - EL CHASTON 16.9
?? - SOPHIE MOLAN 14.1
?? - MADDISON FORD 12.5
?? - Drew Ryan 10.3
(Nanscawen 23.5, Jacques 22.5, Busch 19.6, Wales 18.3)
Goals
1 - Monique Dematteeeeeeeeoooooooo (Falcons) 24
e16 - LIV MANFRE 9
?? - TIA DAVIDGE 8
?? - JAYDA RICHARDSON 6
?? - SARAH PERKINS 5 (from 5 games)
?? - EMILY TASSIOPOULOS 4
(Emily Gough also 4, but from 3 games rather than 9)
Marks
1 - Tamara Luke (Hawks) 4.4
4 - MADDISON FORD 3.4
e7 - EL CHASTON 3.0
?? - TIA “CONTRACTUAL” DAVIDGE 2.3
?? - BAILEY HUNT 4.1
?? - LILY BATEMMAN 2.5
(Wales 6.3, Marshall 4.5, MORCS 3.7)
Tackles
1 - Aubrey Rhodes (Norf) 9.6
Just outside 10 - RUBY MAHONY 6.4
?? - ASH MELNIKAS 4.9
?? - BAILEY HUNT 7.0
?? - EL CHASTON 3.6
?? - SCARLETT ORRITT 5.6
(Busch 6.0, Nanscawen 6.0, Jacques 5.5, Tassiopoulos 5.3)
Kicks
1 - Ange Gogos (Darebin) 14.8
3 - EL CHASTON 11.9
?? - ASH MELNIKAS 8.8
?? - RUBY MAHONY 7.7
?? - MADDISON FORD 7.7
?? - SOPHIE MOLAN 7.9
(MORCS 12.7, Busch 12.3, Radford 12.0, Nanscawen 10.0, Adams and Gough 9.7)
Handballs
1 - RUBY MAHONY 11.3
Just outside 10 - ASH MELNIKAS 8.8
?? - SOPHIE MOLAN 7.9
?? - MADDISON FORD 5.4
?? - EL CHASTON 5.1
(Cox 14 from one game, Nanscawen 13.5, Jacques 13.0, Dyke 12.0, Wales 9.0)
Hit-outs
1 - Shannon Egan (Darebin) 27.5
6 - JAMIEE-LEE MORROW 20.6
Top 20 from 4 games - KRYSTAL RUSSELL 25.3
(Wales 22.7, Dyke 13, Gallagher 13)
ENOUGH OF THE BLOODY STATS… here’s the player rundown.
- #1 Emily Gough – our first pick in the 2023 AFLW draft. 180cm, can play in ANY position on the field (well, I haven’t seen her ruck, but she’d win enough as the extra big-bodied midfielder). 4 goals from 3 games (the first of which was overwhelming played in defence). Way more agile and able to dodge through traffic than you might expect. Will play AFLW this year.
- #5 Georgia Nanscawen –
, you know who she is. - #10 Sienna Hobbs – we have three Bendigo Pioneers, all of whom played in the first game vs Norf. Sienna was a 17yo 179cm ruck/forward thrown to the wolves in this game. Took a great leading clunk in the last quarter.
- #12 Lavina Cox – a Pioneer teammate and was one of our best on the day. Played on the wing and had 18 disposals (mostly handballs).
- #13 Lily-Rose Williamson – a bit forward, a lot mid, a bit back (anda bit backy). Overall not that impressive in these VFLW games; she’s a decent size at this level but won’t get to bully the opposition in the AFLW. Needed better discipline and a few faster reactions.
- #14 Ellyse Gamble – defender defended. Got caught out a few times in the shootout with the Pies.
- #15 Chloe Adams – YAY. Our most recent draft pick (#38) was broadly described as a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none but I think that notably understates her. She beat much larger players (e.g. Port’s Fede Frew and Emily Harley) in contests down back, racked disposals up with ease when let loose on half-back, and had no concerns being an inside mid. Tidy disposal, kicked a goal in brief time forward. Most similar in the AFLW team would be Jacques, but Chloe is classier. Will play this year.
- #16 Matilda Dyke – played 3 games not overlapping with Steph Wales, and was made first ruck rather than her usual wing+backup ruck role in the AFLW. She got well beaten in the ruck contests, but then got a stack of clearances and laid a lot of tackles. I don’t know where she fits, but she will not die wondering.
- #17 Georgia Clarke – defender defended. This coming AFLW season will be a shitshow with Georgia Clark picked up by Collingwood. Maybe the solution is for the AFLW to follow the VFLW’s lead by listing our Georgia as “Klarke” in the stats?
- #19 Gabby Drage – the third of the Bendigo Pioneer juniors. Medium forward, nothing to report.
- #22 Amelia Radford – just the one game, classy mid and forward work vs the Pies
- #23 Amy Gaylor – maybe not as overt as Gough or Adams, but showed pace, class, grit. Started as an outside winger, but spent a decent chunk of time in the middle (one game at 9 of the 10 centre stoppages). Clean hands.
- #25 Alex Morcom – After MORCS’ stint in the VFLW this year, she now has 7 times more total experience as a mid (+3 games on top of the last half of the final vs Geelong). Am I convinced that is her role at AFLW level? No, but it gives us options. To think she only made the list as a top-up after injuries…
- #26 Ash van Loon – in and after our first season of AFLW, I had her as rapidly rising star, taking on the best and not being beaten. She has struggled since.
- #28 Mia Busch – played a few roles, rotating mid and back. She can be a brute but is not fast, and got caught out at FB vs Willy, in particular, because of that.
- #30 Stephanie Wales – CHEAT CODE. Her stats are nuts, but she seemed shy in unleashing her big boot.
And now to the VFLW-listed (being 87% of our named players this year; 12% AFLW, and 1% the Bendigo juniors):
- #41 Amy Cariss-Brett – the speedy (we’ll get to that topic later) winger featured early and continued to play throughout the year as an over-ager at Oakleigh Chargers
- #42 Maddison Ford – 24 games without a miss since her debut last year, and the green-booted one is getting attention. She played forward in game one, had an unrepresentative shocker, and switched to the backline for the rest of the year.
- #43 Olivia Manfre – two bursts of five games, with some flag footy intervening. I’ve said persistently she’s not THE forward, but she showed lots of class. Now third on the ladder for EFC VFLW goals, and heading to the USA. Will be 25yo after she hopefully features in the 2028 Olympics (in 2023 our women were ranked 10th; the men were ranked 16th).
- #45 Sarah Ford – topped out at 14 disposals this year (four times). As can be seen in the CBA table, spent a lot of time on the wing. Hasn’t made her case to get back into the AFLW after Sydney cut her.
- #46 Kyla Tracey – was good in the pre-season, primarily as a HFF. Got one game in round one (after the late Marshall withdrawal), had a bad game, and was never seen again.
- #47 Christina Bernardi – just the 4 late games, due to injury. Mix of inside mid and forward. Great kick, quality candy-seller, not fast. Not clear if playing on.
- #48 Madison Gray – played in Darwin, and not afterwards
- #49 Emily Tassiopoulos – a slight medium forward (plays taller) with a ferocious tackle
- #50 Krystal Russell – I had Krystal as our #1 ruck coming into this season. A year younger she could go all day versus the biggest opponents. She just never developed more hurt factor away from the stoppages.
- #51 Drew Ryan – played 2 games for us as a junior in 2022, went to the Hawks in 2023. Was the first wing picked all year. Her stats are not high, but her vision is good and her disposals are overwhelmingly effective.
- #52 Jayda Richardson – I’m going to lump her with “Scar” (she’d appreciate that) as someone who showed great aggression last year but neither would hurt you on the scoreboard: there was a lack of clean hands and more crucially their kicking was ineffective. But her improvement this year was fantastic. Early on she became a top CHF of the league with pack CLUNKs and more reliable kicking – unfortunately she then missed six weeks and upon return was lumped with backup rucking duties.
- #54 Kalani Scoullar – appeared in the pre-season, then disappeared. I can’t tell you how much our ruck choices was determined by form or other factors, but having Morrow, Russell, Scoullar, and Gallagher (and Wales and Dyke) meant there would have to be those missing out.
- #55 Sarah Perkins – also missed the first 10 weeks. Our forward delivery to her was very often awful. Obviously greatly appreciated on and off the field. Her kicking is
, and that was how many VFLW goals she finished on. - #56 Manaia Huta – on the fringe. Not enough hurt factor on the wing and definitely not clean hands. OK in defence.
- #57 Tayla Crabtree – round one only
- #58 Chloe Prpic – went backwards this year, though the five week injury after round one didn’t help. Fairly anonymous, primarily in defence.
- #59 Tayla Hart-Aluni – we knew she was fast and loved tackling before she got injured last year. This year she added marking to her bow, and her kicking was no longer a complete liability.
- #60 Jaimee-Lee Morrow – played deep defence in a pre-season game, and was great at that. I was in shock this unco ruck was a fast elite spoiler. Then she never did it again. As the year went on, she did more than break even in the ruck, even against giants.
- #61 El Chaston – mix of halfback and mid, mostly. Arguably the best kick in the team. Is AFLW-worthy.
- #62 Ava Jordan – unimpressive early, which veered from the very high credits many in the industry gave her. Has no single elite talent and (spoiler) is very short without being fast. Did show she could be an adequate mid later on… but you need more than adequate to be a top contributor in this league.
- #63 Lily Bateman – I queried her renewal this year. I was wrong. You may have noted I dropped Robinson for her in the final “Best 22”. Developed from a negative scrapper to a decent rebounder as the season went on.
- #64 Ashlea Melnikas – on a small sample, I didn’t have her in my first “Best 22”. I was wrong. To be fair, she played mostly back in those pre-season games and Shaw and McNeice did it better.
- #65 Karly McNiece – started the season with 48 VFLW games, ended with 49.
- #66 Emily Gallagher – great athlete, definitely not a great footballer. But I loved her aggression in the ruck.
- #67 Maddison Shaw – started the season with 36 VFLW games, and did not add to it. Emergency a couple times after her injury.
- #68 Scarlett Orritt – Scar was HBF/wing as a junior, and this year got up the field a bit more to decent effect. Her kicking is much improved. Ferocious tackler.
- #70 Isabelle Porter – mostly played as a defender, with a bit of wing and a lesser amount of insider mid time.
- #71 Lily den Houting – did not play
- #72 Ruby Murdoch – started the year as the (usually) composed rebounding small defender. 3 weeks in she got injured. While she was out, Porter claimed her spot.
- #73 Sophie Molan – Back/mid gun
- #75 Ellie Huggard – yet another with a slow start thanks to injury. The EDFL B&F slotted into the wing (mostly) comfortably.
- #76 Danielle Marshall – did her ankle in the closing moments of the final training session of the pre-season, and between that and some soccer at the Essendon Royals she made just three appearances for the season. Was a shame – her combination with MFord in Darwin almost dual-handedly held back an entire Territory.
- #77 Tia Davidge – the streak continues on her way to be the new youngest player to 50 VFLW games. Had a decent chuck of midfield time in the opening month, but overwhelmingly forward line after that.
- #78 Ruby Mahony – what a pick-up! Hard as inside the pack, has decent pace, and continues the EFC tradition of winning the handball stat across the league. 3rd for disposals in the league. I’d perhaps want her to be a bit less ambitious and feed it out to a bigger kick… but really, GUN.
- #79 Bailey Hunt – never played forward before coming too us. Kicks 2 goals in her first 15 minutes there (in a game we win by 9 points). Goes back in the first half vs GWS, gets caught out for speed. Second half vs GWS she goes to the midfield, and stays there for the rest of the year. Highest average VFLW-listed Fantasy Points for us, significantly due to her tackling. Going back to the previously listing, not sure we used her boot enough. Is still only 27yo despite a long AFLW career.
- #80 Marnie Robinson – there’s a lot of Bella Clarke about Marnie. Marginally missed out on AFLW selection, has moved interstate to make her case, is aggro as ■■■■. Not quite as good.
OK, stop talking individuals… talk team and team outcomes.
Ha, take out the game versus each other and our percentage is sooooo much better than the likely premiers (Norf).
| Year | Ave For | Ave Against | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 21 | 52 | 40% |
| 2019 | 34 | 36 | 94% |
| 2021 | 34 | 25 | 136% |
| 2022 | 64 | 16 | 394% |
| 2023 | 27 | 28 | 98% |
| 2024 | 31 | 37 | 82% |
| ALL | 36 | 32 | 113% |
We’ve spent a lot of time over the years being ineffectual at scoring… but good at not conceding scores. This year was only partially that (in the bad way) on average… but individually we were all over-the-shop.
Take our Norf and the three biggest scores in our games were by us (shootout vs the Pies, and crushing Casey and Geelong).
But everyone but Darebin (before they got good) and the Cats (rubbish) scored at least 25 versus us… last year we scored less than this year, but held 8 of our 17 opponents under that bar.
Unlike many teams, our really bad/frustrating results weren’t versus quasi-AFLW teams (which we copped one more than expected). They included the five games versus the top three teams (Norf we weren’t going to beat, even without the umpires gross intervention in round 9; but we should have got 2.5 more wins out of the top two H&A teams).
Not throwing away those games vs Willy and Footscray actually means we finish on top (EFC 40 points, Willy 38, Footscray 36).
(Mind you, I still haven’t worked out how we finished just one win off top spot last year… was not a high-standard year!)
The first five games (2 wins, a draw, and 2 losses) went like this:
| Game | EFC G | EFC B | EFC score | Opp G | Opp B | Opp Score | ∆ Scores | ∆ Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Port | 0 | 7 | 7 | 9 | 0 | 54 | -2 | -47 |
| 2 Willy | 4 | 11 | 35 | 5 | 5 | 35 | 5 | 0 |
| 3 Darebin | 5 | 10 | 40 | 1 | 4 | 10 | 10 | 30 |
| 4 Dogs | 3 | 8 | 26 | 4 | 4 | 28 | 3 | -2 |
| 5 Saints | 4 | 8 | 32 | 3 | 6 | 24 | 3 | 8 |
| TOTAL | 16 | 37 | 133 | 13 | 19 | 97 | 21 | 36 |
The conversion improved after that (>60% accurate in the last ten games, almost dragging us up to 50% overall) but there were still plenty of games in which we were poor delivering it forward.
The interesting thing is I found it really quite hard to name a best 21… we had a bit more depth than last year.
So how do we go from me noting that AND stating a chunk of our return players greatly improved (e.g. Richardson, Hart-Aluni, Morrow, Orritt, BATEMAN) to resulting in a worse outcome (same spot on the ladder from one fewer H&A win, and then one fewer victorious final)?
Most obviously we lost a LOT of top-level talent: Ugle Dicker Ryan Crook BClarke Clifford Sutton Hurrell Ashley-Cooper is 9 OUTs who played 120 games. Plus Barba and Tierney, as while they had only played a handful of games as then-AFLW-listed players there was a chance to retain them.
Here are the 9 most-experienced additions we made:
- Melnikas + Mahony - 15 games each (yay)
- sFord - 14 games (meh)
- Porter - 12 games
- Hunt - 8 games
- Perkins - 5 games
- Bernardi - 4 games
- McNeice - 1 game
- Shaw - 0 games
That’s 74 games. Assume we played the two extra finals to match 2023, and you can perhaps call it 88 games (i.e. the top seven play). We did very well importing established talent, but didn’t get them out on the field enough.
Not noted in the above is Marshall moving from the AFLW list to the VFLW list, and only increasing her games played from 3 to 4.
I bored you all to death over the pre-season about not having enough talls forward AND back (in the particular absence of Clifford, Crook, and Bella). I bored you all to death about Manfre not being big/fast enough to be THE forward.
At the last minute (publicly) we added Perkins and Bernardi. Neither played until the final month of our season, so it’s hard to say how we might have adapted to their presence across a full season.
But somehow we ended up with a tall-playing forward line (Perkins, some Bernardi, Richardson, Tassiopoulos) and backline (MFord, Robinson, some Marshall, Molan).
We discovered that Hunt, Bernardi, and Perkins were pretty slow (but Bernardi is a very slippery target once she has the ball). So we really needed to deliver forward efficiently, and we often didn’t. Hence the forward line ended up less than the sum of its parts, with some nice bonuses (particularly, Richardson early and Tassiopoulos late).
The backline I find harder to quantify how they conceded that score (though arguably you could just say Bella + Tasmin + Courtney). Chaston and Molan at half-back are cheat codes. MFord notably improved her one-on-one win percent, and as the season went on became a more overt intercept mark and rebounder.
Lily Bateman: I was wrong.
In the midfield, particularly, your top few players are key. We had some significant players there, but not always dangerous players. Mahony = most handballs in the league, has pace, but isn’t a great kick. Melnikas and Hunt were also more inside than outside. We needed more kicking from Hunt and Chaston, in particular, into that forward half.
sFord was not often enough influential. Ryan slowed a bit towards the end of the season, but was quite effective.
I mentioned earlier we brought in some pace… but then played relatively little of it. Best 22s are hard, m’kay?
Davidge and Prpic were thrown big roles last year, and grew greatly. Davidge backed up, but Prpic struggled with injury and form (6 games). Huta was never the type to overtly damage the opposition, but became outright butter-fingered this year (13 games down to 6).
Madison Gray went from 8 games to 1, but she was marginal last year too. She provided pace, though, which was sadly lacking last year. This year we did have a faster squad (e.g. Cariss-Brett, Crabtree, den Houting, Murdoch) but for various reasons that rarely resulted in a faster game day team.
Hart-Aluni, Orritt, and Tassiopoulos did provide closing speed for tackling, though.
OK, time for recaps!
NTFLW 2.5.17 defeat EFC 1.4.10
We had the oddity of a mid-week mid-pre-season match against the NTFLW, with a team that included the likes of Jasmyn Hewett (c), ruck Steph Lawrence, Steph Williams, Molly Althouse, Maighan Fogas, Carly Remnos, and AFLW ump Emma Stark. It was a wet mess; we led early before the locals got another goal and held on after that.
We’d only just announced our new coach in Cherie O’Neill, and Bonnie Toogood and Steph Cain got some coaching exercise (Nat Wood was da real boss, and Mick Hurley also featured). Grace Dicker did play in this game, before disappearing on the eve of squad announcements.
Radio 3DJR attended the Tiwi Bombers game the weekend before, in which 2019 Bomber Freda Puruntatameri was amongst our bests. She and many others backed up to play 3-4 days later, which explained to some extent why the game slowed in the second half.
Ruby Mahony demonstrated she was a big addition to our squad. Marshall and MFord and Puruntatameri totally bossed the NTFLW tall forwards in the second half. McNeice and Shaw were also good in defence – I instantly had both of them Best 21 so the two having a total of one game for the year was very disappointing!
Close enough!
Was much Excitement™ (but she needs to work on her kicking).
The paying crowd was larger than the free AFLW crowd in Mackay, and with a much much greater proportion of fans favouring Essendon.
February occurs: training, boring!
Actually, training wasn’t boring (one-in-four-year luck, when I attended again on Feb 29th):
I also picked out Christina Bernardi, on the fringe of training, as really really good… or, to be more accurate, I failed to identify Christina!
Finally, a regular pre-season practice match:
Port 5.8.38 defeats EFC 0.4.4
We had a weak-ish team (no Marshall, no MFord) but Port were also down a chunk of players. Bella Clarke was goal ump at the Bullant Hill end.
In their absence Morrow unexpectedly played in defence, and was really good at it!
We played Morrow AND Russell AND Gallagher AND Scoullar 
You can vaguely get away with that with a big pre-season bench… except we didn’t have one of them! Huta injured and Molan only playing a half, so we end with three on the bench versus their seven (they started with eight).
It’s a drab performance by us: three points in the first quarter, then nothing for the next two.
Well, that bit above was consistent!
Note that after the below Morrow played ruck only in real games.
Despite the loss I am somehow a bit lid-off (you can compare this preview with my season review above):
Ha, I forgot the bit below. I need to hack the EFC servers, again, to find this.
The second/final practice match is versus Fark Carlton, and we farked Carlton 
EFC 9.4.58 defeat FCFC 1.9.15 (all 73 points were scored at the southern end)
With a high temp of 34º forecast, the game start is brought forward to 9am.
Debuting are Tassiopoulos, Crabtree, Murdoch, and SARAH PERKINS.
Notable players not named:
- Dicker (?)
- Maddi Ford (running in sneakers recent weeks)
- Huta (played last week)
- Hart-Aluni (rehab training, still)
- Porter (?)
- Melnikas (?)
- Hunt (?)
- Huggard (rehab training)
- Bernardi (finger?)
Evidence it was an early start…
It takes 4 minutes for Perkins to take her first mark for Essendon, despite us fighting a strong wind in the first quarter. At quarter time we trail 0.0.0 to 1.4.10
It takes us less than four minutes of wind for us to take the lead… a Mahony bomb from 40m, and a Richo trademark left-foot hook around the corner.
(It was actually 26-10)
Perkins kicks her second goal to get us to 52 points, which is our highest score since 2022.
After the final siren, Shaw is on her knees doing the “not worthy” to Jordan. The mark by the shortest (?) player in the league was legit hilarious.
Game review: