So, as we learned Wednesday night, the AFLW have given the green light for the next season to kick off in August – practically four months from now.
An article by The Age reported that the season will kick off during the pre-finals bye that the men are often scheduled for at the end of the home and away season and run up until either end of November or start of December.
In terms of initial reactions, the first thing I thought about was the weather – at long last, we’re going to see these women play in conditions that are tailor-made for football.
There’s a part of me that enjoyed watching the AFLW in the Summer months, because in years before AFLW was a thing, I’d be trying to find something to keep me busy during the summer months.
The NBA is there, but I don’t get as into it as others might. The Australian Open? Yeah, I don’t mind it and the test cricket is there too, but football has always been paramount to me and first on the list whenever it comes on the television.
Having said that, I’ve covered every season of the AFLW to date in one capacity or another and it’s been a very enjoyable thing to write about over these years. You learn so much and to see it evolve in front of your eyes is just something I marvel about continuously.
Playing football in 30-plus degree heat is not something I’d want to be doing on a weekly basis, I detest the pre-season training in such conditions at the best of times, I can only imagine what the women have gone through season after season.
However, as we peel back other layers of this conversation about starting the league in August, it leaves you asking more questions than it does provide answers about the state of AFLW.
For one, the start of the season is smack-bang in Finals time for the men’s competition. Sure, Round One gets clear air, and I’m thankful for that – the competition must take advantage of this and fixture some bloody good contests for the first week – rivalry games, derbies, showdowns, we know the diehards will come, but it’s those who sit on the fence of the women’s game is going to get people to come to the football and watch.
Because once the men’s finals start, guaranteed that most people will be watching it with significant interest, whilst the women’s competition takes the back seat – that’s four weeks’ worth of that happening. If you ask a random Joe Blow on street about who he’d rather watch, nine times out of ten he’s looking at the AFL finals.
So, then what? We’ve got the off-season for the men’s, and we all know how tedious the discussion about contract lengths, who wants to go home because they miss Mum (nothing wrong with this by the way) or who’s searching for greater opportunity. We get weeks of that, and it’ll be front and centre, whilst the AFLW continue to play games.
The trade talk then becomes draft talk as we often sit and discuss who goes where, who’s the more talented prospect, what draft pick swaps are on the cards, all that gets lapped up by all the folks within mainstream media and it becomes talk of the town. All the while, the women are quietly busting their ass winning the footy at some dung heap like Casey Fields on a Saturday afternoon.
It does lead to the next point and that’s about the players. There have been many discussions about having to juggle their commitments as a player and their commitments off-field, whether that’s full-time work, study, casual jobs just to make ends meet.
Not only is there strain on their places of employment to make sure it all runs smoothly but having a short turnaround in seasons is putting a big risk factor on the players on burning out or losing passion for the game – I’m hopeful it doesn’t come to that.
What it also does is that it will most likely keep many of the AFLW players away from the state leagues that are currently happening right now.
Struggling sides at the VFLW like North Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs could benefit from having some of their younger players coming back in to hone their craft and come into the new year stronger, fitter and perhaps gain more knowledge or versatility about the game. I’m sure we could say that about several other clubs around the country.
There’s a part of me that worries about the casual fans of football – who don’t mind watching the women’s game on their time – will they get burnt out themselves by watching so much football and that would take a hit to viewership and numbers at the ground? That doesn’t do the AFLW any favours at all.
On top of that, what does this August start mean for the Irish players? We’ve had players like Orla O’Dwyer, Cora Staunton, Aileen Gilroy, Sarah Rowe and at least a dozen others grace us with their talents over the Summer, but with Gaelic Football occurring in Ireland around this time, it leaves them with a difficult choice to make – one that will most likely see them stay home.
We already know that the talent across Australia is going to be strained already due to the expansion clubs coming in next season and a lot of people have been quick to jump on about how big the gulf in standard is between a team like Brisbane and a team like West Coast. Imagine a young and building side like Sydney have to play the Lions next season? We’ll be seeing a few more triple-figure scores on the horizon.
What starting a new season in August means as well is that we’re going to be robbed of seeing star players like Bri Davey, Brittany Bonnici, Izzy Huntington, and Kate Lutkins play at all this season either, having all suffered season-ending knee injuries at some stage this year.
Not to mention that we’re yet to see exactly what kind of rate we’ll get ACL injuries this year. We’ve also seen the likes of Rhi Watt, Mikayla Morrison and Harriet Cordner all go down with this injury too – all-up I think there’s about nine ACL injuries across the first nine weeks.
We haven’t heard too much about what the players, themselves, think about this situation yet, and I hope we get something in the days that follow.
If I’m someone playing in the AFLW, I think my feelings would be mixed. Whilst it’s great that we’re finally getting games out of scorching heat (at least until November or if you’re fixtured to play in Western Australia), I worry about the short turnaround – four months goes by in the blink of an eye, and I’d imagine that there’s going to be a large block of those four months dedicated to another pre-season to get everything right, update structures and improve the fitness and skill of the players and then proceed to play the season all over again.
If you’d ask me if I’d go about playing two seasons in a year, the passionate footballer in me at 18-19 years old wouldn’t hesitate to say ‘let’s go’, but I think about the health and wellbeing of the players today and it seriously makes me think twice about this idea – I don’t like this.
If the league is so committed to have the league start in the second half of the calendar year, then why don’t they have them start in August of 2023? Why does it have to be four months from now?
Give the players an extended break, give them an opportunity to continue to hone their craft in the state league this year, let them do what they want to do – work, study, have a nice holiday and I have no doubt that if they’re serious about being premiers, they’ll go off and work on their fitness in their own time.
This would also give the state leagues enough time to calibrate their respective seasons to that of the AFLW. Instead, we’ll have players who aren’t Best-21 quality or players who were unlucky not to play on the weekend, robbed of the opportunity to either continue to work on their trade or to redeem themselves and fight back into the seniors.
The more I think about it, the less sure I am that the AFL hasn’t thought this through. Sadly, it wouldn’t surprise me actually – the organisation has been taking the piss out of the AFLW since the inception and has not given it the respect it deserves, there’s so much to break down there, but I’ll save that for another time.
It’s no wonder we’ve got that airhead Peter V’Landys running his mouth about the NRLW getting more viewers and ratings than that of the AFLW – at least he cares about the women’s game and is committed to the cause.
What the hell are Gil and Nicole Livingstone doing to grow this game?
