What the fuck is going on? A night game on a Sunday. No public holiday. Is the AFL actually taking the piss?

Just confirmed on 7 News Perth.

AFL taking advantage of loyal WA fans filling the ground regardless.

Transcript:

The Collingwood Football Club wishes to provide an update on its AFLW program following a period of underperformance and outline its commitment to improving the program moving forward.

Collingwood will engage an independent external expert to work alongside the Club’s AFLW Subcommittee to undertake a strategic review of its AFLW program and recommend opportunities for improvement.

President Barry Carp said:

“Our AFLW program is an integral part of the Collingwood Football Club and we are committed to ensuring it is positioned for sustained success.

“The Board, together with the Executive team, acknowledges that we haven’t got it right – we take responsibility for that and are committed to getting better, both on and off the field.

“Engaging an expert outside Collingwood is important for us to provide a broader perspective, challenge our existing approaches and identify what needs to improve or change.

“As part of their work, together with the Club’s AFLW Subcommittee, the independent external expert will develop clear recommendations and ensure we have the right foundations to support the program’s long-term success.

“We have a responsibility to our players, coaches, staff, Members, supporters and the wider game to listen to feedback and be prepared to make meaningful, considered changes across the Club to build a stronger AFLW program for everyone at Collingwood.”

The Club will provide a further update following the completion of the review, including its key recommendations and priorities for improvement.

The AFLW has now been around for a decade with its 11th season currently ongoing in 2026. Thanks to two separate seasons in 2022, we’re in a strange situation where we’ve had 11 seasons over the course of 10 years. But it is worth asking ourselves, how has the Women’s game developed during that time. With little to no support for grass roots women’s footy prior to the creation of the AFLW, the sport has had to develop at a speed the men’s game never has to in order to cater enough players to fill the top flight.

In 2017 the league consisted of 8 teams, playing each other across 7 rounds and leading directly into a grand final. Teams also consisted of 14 on-ground players and 6 on the bench on gameday and squads consisted of ~27 players each. This meant that there were ~216 professional players at this stage. Quarters were only 15 minutes with only the final 2 minutes including time on and unlimited interchanges.

EDIT: commenters have pointed out that onfield player numbers are wrong. Apologies for the mistake, there’s a formatting issue with the desktop version of the AFLW site that only lists 14 players on the field. I didn’t watch the early seasons so I took it on face value. I’m working on an adjustment now, but it only effects slides 1&2. All other analyses were done independently and don’t rely on an adjustment of the numbers.

EDIT 2: This has now been fixed and you can see the real numbers in the comments. Key takeaway is that scoring has definitely improved.

Fast forward to 2026 and we have 18 teams competing across 12 rounds leading into a similar finals structure to the men’s game (minus wildcard round, thank god). Teams now have 16 players on the ground at a time with 5 on the bench with squads expanding to ~32 players. In total this means there are now 576 professional players in the system a 266% rise over a ten-year period. Game time has also been extended to 17 minutes a quarter with time on in the last two minutes and interchanges are now limited to 60 per game.

With this in mind and my own personal opinions about how the women’s game has been managed out of the way, let’s have a look at how the game has changed over the last 10 years. To do so, I built spreadsheets that identified total stats across key statistical areas and identified differentials in each statistical category per game. This allows us to get an understanding, game by game, what is occurring, how teams are winning and what denotes a ‘successful’ game style in 2017 compared to 2026.

Full article: https://pathannah.substack.com/p/how-aflw-has-changed-2017-to-2026?r=7coz0j&utm_medium=ios

Excitingly, despite the massive changes the AFLW has gone through in the last 10 years there has been significant change in the way the game has been played since 2017. Despite an additional 360 players in the system in 2026 compared to 2017, the standard of Football has increased with more uncontested footy, increased disposal efficiency and increased scoring, even when the statistics are normalised between the seasons. This is a pretty remarkable achievement to be honest because imagine if a similar amount of players were dumped into the Men’s game.

Personally, I think this reflects exceptionally well on how the pathways for AFLW have developed over the last 10 years, producing players who are prepared for the elite level more regularly. While there is still growth to be had, the comparisons to the first season suggests that that growth is currently happening. With the correct support at the grassroots level and preparing young talent for the rigours of the top flight we should see this quality continue to grow. Where I think the league needs to improve most drastically is through its support of the in club AFLW programs to help with the development of players once they enter the system. Not providing them appropriate foundations to grow as athletes will continue to hamstring the competition and restrict it from growing into the league it deserves to be.

On a club-by-club level, this analysis identifies the key areas of the game teams should be building on including their capacity to recycle the ball out of contest and into an uncontested environment. On top of this, ensuring you are effective in your disposal once you’re in those environments is essential with Disposal Efficiency and Efficiency Inside 50 becoming more and more important as seasons go by. If you can ensure that once you are in an uncontested environment you can continue to hit targets, particularly Inside 50, you will have far more opportunity to get past your opponents. It’s not rocket science to be honest, but it’s always harder to put systems into practice on the pitch that help bring these skills to the fore, the best teams do it very well while those who’ve struggled this season have been poor. Investing in individual skill development and confidence to hit dangerous kicks more often feels like the key targets for teams like Essendon, Collingwood and St. Kilda.

Edit: due to a formatting issue on the AFLW website, I was led to believe that there were 14 on-ground players in the initial season. This was incorrect, though most of the information will stand, in fact the gaps will most likely increase.

This post is not related to any ongoing events in Cape Town

Per Xander McGuire on 7 EDIT: The MCG game will also be played.

For those not familiar, WARF Radio began as Girls Play Footy in 2014, as a website/podcast/commentary outlet. The name change happened in 2017, the podcast continued until 2021, and they largely covered VWFL and VFLW until 2022, when they switched to AFLW. They are all volunteer with Pete bankrolling the entire operation himself, and little to no support from the AFL other than permission to cover their games.

They had better coverage than mainstream outlets, and it was a great platform for folks, including many women, to get real experience commentating matches. A few of their commentators have gone on to ABC and SEN as well.

The fact that there was no acknowledgment from the AFL or the AFL Press corp about the work being done is criminal.