AT THE start of the fifth week of the NAB AFLW season, three clubs are under the 24-player benchmark to field a full squad.

Collingwood has been playing top-ups for several weeks now, while West Coast named former Eagle Krstel Petrevski and Swan Districts midfielder Kayley King as emergencies for its loss to Brisbane.

The situation is also dire for Melbourne, which currently has nine players on its injury list, with both Paxy Paxman and father-daughter recruit Jemma Rigoni tests for Friday's game against Essendon. If both are cleared, their availability still only sits at 23.

The Dees were forced into a late change last week when Grace Beasley tore her ACL at training, but opted to name the injured midfielder as one of three emergencies, rather than choose a top-up player.

Collingwood head of AFLW Jess Burger said the time was nearly right to expand lists, but cautioned on the need for additional resources to accommodate extra players.

"It's an interesting one, because I probably don't have a widely strong view on it right at this point in time. I know that sounds bizarre, considering where we've sort of been using 32 players," Burger told AFL.com.au.

"On the one hand, we need to be able to get the most development out of our current list, and that requires – from a coaching point of view, from a medical, from a high-performance point of view – the ability to maximize our current 30.

"On top of that, for every player you add, that's another resource to invest time and effort into. But on the other side of things is you also need that talent to give themselves the best opportunities to succeed as well."

Burger believes that the growing depth of talent on offer, coupled with the historic need for top-up players, means an increase of two players per side strikes the right balance.

"What we're in a bit of a transition period at the moment. You guys are calling it the 'super draft', so we're going to have some depth in this year's draft to continue to add to lists," Burger said.

"Whereas before, I think clubs may have felt that once you get two or three draft picks in – we've clearly seen a huge influx from Irish players to supplement the existing talent.

"I think that we will, or we should, move to 32. That's probably around about the right number, if I'm looking at historical evidence of how many clubs have been required to use how many additional players.

"But I think it's finding a real balance between making sure the extra talent is up to the level, and then also making sure that you're able to service that talent too. That's a really convoluted way of saying, 'I think we're almost there'."