WITH season six of the AFLW done and dusted, we now look toward a competition with every AFL club represented, effectively closing out the first key era of the elite women’s game.
Over the first six years the competition has already changed dramatically. Growing from eight, to ten and most recently 14 teams, technique and strategy has evolved significantly since that inaugural game in 2017.
Game style
Early in the piece, AFLW footy was highly contested and as a result, games were dominated by contested possessions. Season one recorded the highest percentage of contested possessions in games, with 53.8 per cent of the 176.9 average possessions recorded as contested.
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Progressively this has shifted, with the uncontested possession rate increasing periodically each season, hitting an all-time high of 53 per cent this year. This is indicative of more ball control in game, which can be attributed to several factors including increasing skill as players spend more time within the system, and more nuanced strategies encouraged by coaching staff.
Going hand in hand with this increased ball control is the number of marks taken on average each season, another statistic that has steadily increased since 2017, reaching a high of 41 marks per game in 2022.
North Melbourne’s addition to the competition in 2019 saw the club at the forefront of this more considered outside game and is the only club to average a higher uncontested possession rate in every season it has been in the league.
This culminated in its record-breaking win against West Coast in round 10. The Kangaroos registered the highest disposal (308) and kick (185) counts the league has ever seen, and with that broke the AFLW record for highest team disposal efficiency with 74.7 per cent.
Just two clubs this season – Geelong and Gold Coast – averaged more contested possessions than uncontested, compared to seven of the eight inaugural clubs in 2017.
Scoring
While the growth of scoring in the AFLW has not been as strictly linear as other growth factors, there has been a considerable shift in scoring since the competition began.
Just six rounds in league history have seen average scores below 30: two in 2017 as the competition got off the ground, two in 2020 as four new teams began to find their feet, and two this season as COVID interruptions saw many teams face condensed fixtures and limited player availability.
Evident in teams’ ability to score heavily is the number of times sides have kicked 60 or more points in a game. Across the 116 games in 2017 and 2018, just 3.4 per cent of scores broached 60 points, while in the 286 games since round one, 2021, that percentage increased to 9.8.
Off the back of this, the AFLW’s record score was broken twice this season, with Melbourne currently holding the record of 107 points – the first team to register a triple digit score.
At the top end of the scale, two clubs have completed a season with an average of more than 50 points per game: Adelaide in 2019 in which they won the premiership, and the undefeated Fremantle in 2020 whereby the competition was ended prior to a Grand Final taking place.
This season three players kicked more goals than ever previously recorded in a season, too. Both Tayla Harris and Cora Staunton kicked 18 goals, surpassing Darcy Vescio, Chloe Molloy and Dakota Davidson’s 16 of 2021, and the competition’s leading goal kicker Ashleigh Woodland became the first to kick more than 20 goals in a season this year.
Competition make-up
Since the inaugural AFLW game, 622 different players have made their debut. Of the fourteen clubs, Fremantle has used the most players with 71, narrowly ahead of Carlton and GWS who have each used 70 players.
113 players listed in 2022 were on inaugural AFLW lists. The journey for each has been varied. Notably Ally Anderson, Emily Bates and Ebony Marinoff have had uninterrupted runs and each sit on 53 career games. Meanwhile Jordan Membrey has been in and out of the system, making her debut in round four, 2017 for Brisbane, the forward brought up her 18th game in round five last year and is currently on the way back from an ACL injury incurred in that game.
282 AFLW games have been played on 47 different grounds, with Ikon Park hosting 28 encounters including the 2018 Grand Final. 414 different players, however, have taken to Whitten Oval – more than any other AFLW venue.
31 different head coaches have taken the reigns in AFLW games – four of which were caretaker coaches – and inaugural head coaches Craig Starcevich and Mick Stinear each reached their 50-game milestone during the 2022 season. As it stands, Adelaide’s Matthew Clarke and Fremantle’s Trent Cooper are each on track to reach the milestone next, with 38 and 37 games coaches respectively.
Natalie Wood, Lauren Arnell and Cameron Bernasconi have each been appointed head coaches in recent weeks, with Arnell the first former AFLW player to take the main job. Bec Goddard and Scott Gowans will both return to the head coaching ranks, too, appointed Hawthorn and Sydney’s inaugural coach ahead of season seven.
