THE FULLY expanded NAB AFLW competition now allows for 540 players at the top level, but clubs are keen to marginally boost their list sizes.
Clubs currently have 30 primary-listed players for a 10-round season, and can carry additional inactive players if they were ruled out for the year prior to round one due to injury, work or personal commitments or pregnancy.
Team sheets have previously had 21 players and two emergencies, but that has been bumped up to three emergencies this season.
While it allows for greater flexibility in listing a variety of back-up players (e.g. a midfielder, a tall and a forward), clubs have been feeling the pinch.
St Kilda has twice listed injured players among its three emergencies this season, with Grace Kelly (Achilles) and Rosie Dillon (rested) named.
If clubs fall under the 24-player mark, they can add an injury replacement player to the side's primary list from its (up to) 10 train-on players.
AFLW INJURY LIST How healthy is your team?
Train-ons attend training once a week, and are generally made up of former AFLW and state league players.
Carlton recently added forward Christina Bernardi to its list, with the delisted Tiger playing against Melbourne.
Blues coach Daniel Harford is one who wants to see slightly expanded lists, with the ability to tuck development players away for a few years also limited due to the squads of 30.
"Short answer is yes. Even just for management of players at training, if you've got 30, you can't even do match [simulation] because you're a few players short, and then there's always a few sitting out," Harford said.
"It’s difficult to be really productive with your coaching of structure and strategy and development with a list of 30.
"I don't know what the number is, we're clearly living through a bad patch at the moment, some clubs have no issues and they have 28-29 fit players and no problems.
"In the overall grand scheme of things, we need four or six more."
Last week, Greater Western Sydney was another side to only have 24 available players, meaning every fit player was on the full team sheet for its record-breaking 96-point loss to Adelaide.
