Wasting talent: Why 11 games a year is not enough for AFLW players

“For us, what we could get out of it outweighed the risk, and potentially we were willing to take those risks at this stage with a young group, to see where they’re at,” she said.

She added the lower league provided an opportunity to test out positional changes, including skipper Ellie Blackburn playing at half-forward, Jess Fitzgerald at half-back and Jasmyn Smith, who moved from Gold Coast at the end of last season with just five AFLW games under her belt, on the wing.

Ahead of the AFLW pre-season, Greater Western Sydney and Sydney joined the VFLW competition for five weeks, with players from their AFLW lists getting extra development and practice.

The clubs’ different approaches has made for some lop-sided contests.

In round 1 of the VFLW season, Box Hills Hawks thrashed Casey (aligned with Melbourne) by 108 points. Sydney beat North Melbourne by 89 points and Casey by 85 points.

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Swans coach Scott Gowans told AFL media his team felt they had “almost caught up another season (on the wider AFLW competition)” because of the state-league stint.

Chiera said the appearance of stars such as Hawthorn’s league best and fairest winner Emily Bates and former No.2 draft pick Jasmine Fleming took some VFLW sides by surprise.

“From club-to-club, I’ve certainly had feedback that players aren’t sure of what’s happening because at their club they’re not allowed to play, or if they are, it’s just a handful of players that have been earmarked as needing development, but the bulk of the list don’t. And they look across the competition, and there are much more senior players playing in the VFLW and they question why,” she said.

“So, the Emily Bates example, say when she showed up in VFLW, that might have taken some clubs by surprise because the Emily Bates equivalent of their clubs was not playing VFLW.”

Because the AFLW and VFLW seasons don’t overlap, players in the national comp who get dropped or are returning from injury don’t have a forum to find form and fight their way back into their team in-season.

“It makes it hard to stay motivated. Especially in a long off-season where you’re just not playing for so long. You know in 12 months of the year, you’ll be playing competitive football for three to four months. That’s a long time of not playing a game,” Chiera said.

“So, do they lose their passion? Yeah, maybe. It’s hard to be motivated and to be performing at that top level when it’s just training and there’s no game in sight.”

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Ash Naulty, head of AFLW at Carlton, said despite the AFLW and VFLW seasons not being aligned, they have tried to emulate their men’s programs, using their seconds to educate players on game plans and systems.

“For us, even though they’re different timings for the season, the principles and purpose behind it are probably the same, so an opportunity for them to play and continue to grow talent,” Naulty said.

He added it was important for keeping players connected to their love of the game as the AFLW season was only three months a year. “Equally, it’s a bit of a nourishment point of view because it’s a long off season”.

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