AFLW 2018: End of Season Report Cards
- Mar 25, 2018
- 10 min read
The second AFL Women's season was far more even than its predecessor, with clubs rising and falling all throughout the eight-week season. With two years of development behind them and an expansion year ahead of them, where do each of the eight clubs sit?
All photos credit to Russ Canham.
Carlton Blues
2017: 4th
2018: 8th
In a word: The Blues had a perfect alignment. It fell like dominoes. After injuries and shaky nerve cost the Blues in 2017, aggressive trade play saw the two biggest fish in the wantaway pond in Brisbane’s Tayla Harris and Collingwood Best & Fairest winner Nicola Stevens come to IKON Park to seemingly combine all the pieces for a flag. Carlton’s 2018 season was a debacle. Forget another hand of bad luck in coach Damien Keeping missing two matches after being hospitalised with ITP and captain Brianna Davey’s ACL injury – the Blues’ strategy and structures reflected an appalling understanding of the strengths and opportunities of an outstanding list. Five straight losses ended a season in which their defensive set-up at stoppages negated their run and carry and forward entry. The numbers damn Keeping and his assistants: Carlton was dead-last in disposals, clearances and goals with their game averages falling by 13, 3.3 and 2.6 respectively from last season. VFLW and SANFLW pundits were left flummoxed that a midfield boosted with the addition of Jess Hosking, Keryn Harrington, Maddie Gay and Sophie Li could perform so poorly.
As for their red-carpet recruits? Stevens was a prime example of Carlton’s misuse of its players. A proven dominator at half-back, the 24-year old was wasted across the wing and had less of the ball than during her time in defence at Collingwood. Harris’ efforts were the mark of a woman looking to repay her club’s investment as the key forward pushed hard upfield, hit contests hard and was easily Carlton’s most dangerous target. However, with a season haul of 5.6 she is yet to shake the case of the yips that has prevented her from being truly elite.
Consigned to the wooden spoon by a humbling Round 7 loss to Fremantle with Keeping officially leaving the club the following Tuesday, Carlton’s most immediate quandary is deciding the next step for the playing list. Second-year players Lauren Arnell, Sarah Last, Kate Shierlaw, Maddie Keryk and Kate Gillespie-Jones fell in and out of favour and will be rubbing rosaries to keep a spot for 2019. The silver lining is that a strong core of the 18-25 year old bracket is still there.
Grade: E
Highlight: There can be no questioning the courage of Carlton’s Round 2 win over GWS. Consider this: in the week leading up to the game, the Blues were scapegoated at the forefront of an unfair competition trial as the viability of AFLW was questioned after their scrappy season-opening win over Collingwood. Keeping was hospitalised with his then-not-diagnosed ITP on the Wednesday and Carlton prepared for their clash against the hungry Giants with obituaries flowing gleefully. Yet the Blues scrapped and fought in a rain-sodden encounter with Brianna Davey, Shae Audley and Sarah Hosking (then-AFLW record 16 tackles) starring in the gritty 21-point win. In the last quarter, Davey’s ACL buckled in a tackle. Post-siren, cameras caught several Blues in tears. Carlton was 2-0, on top of the ladder and their season was over.
Best & Fairest Prediction: Katie Loynes. Few Blues improved in 2018 and, to be fair, Katie Loynes didn’t add to her arsenal per se. She just delivered her crazily courageous play week after week in the face of perpetually worsening odds while her side fell to ashes around her. The 31-year old’s frenzied energy was a talisman in a team that had very clearly lost the heart by season’s end. Over half of Loynes’ touches were contested and her 37 tackles was the ninth-highest of any player – not bad for a veteran who played primarily as a forward in a lowly side. However, stats don’t show the example Loynes set with her mad-dog second-efforts, sprints to make a contest and determination to get up when she couldn’t, that trait of the champion. A more telling plaudit was her mid-season comparisons to Greg Williams, arguably the greatest midfielder ever to don the navy blue.
Fremantle Dockers
2017: 7th
2018: 7th
In a word: Questions must now be asked of the Dockers. A club with an entire state from which to draft has finished near the foot of the ladder twice in two years. And sure, their luck with player availability wasn’t much better in 2018 than it had been last year (they lost Kirby Bentley in the State of Origin match, marquee Kiara Bowers is still yet to play a game after her 2016 ACL rupture while WA-born Kellie Gibson didn’t get on the park until Round 7 after returning from Adelaide) but it’s hard to deny that the wheels of progress that swept AFLW2.0 really didn’t get rolling in Fremantle.
Michelle Cowan’s side kicked off 2018 with a bizarre game plan that combined high numbers around stoppages with long kicks down the line; opposition defenders scarcely able to believe their luck racked up possessions and rebounds with ease. There was notable improvement from that Round 1 debacle against the Bulldogs once Fremantle decided that a lockdown game style fought at close quarters suited them better. A brilliant win over Melbourne in Round 3 was their high watermark but Freo supporters were left gobsmacked in Round 6 as their side bombarded Adelaide for little return and then let a win slip as an injury-hampered Erin Phillips kicked three from the goal square.
Aside from wooden-spooners Carlton, there was no team with less A-listers than the Dockers. It would have taken a phenomenal champion team to achieve success when just one player is in the top 10 for disposals (Dana Hooker, who also led AFLW for clearances), goals (Amy Sharp) and tackles (Kara Donnellan). However, it’s hard to deny how well the class of 2017 performed: Evangeline Gooch, Ashlee Atkins, Leah Mascall and second-chance hero Stephanie Cain all played every game while it will be hard to forget Emily McGuire’s fairytale match-winning debut against Melbourne any time soon.
Consider this season review a Segway into a season preview for 2019. The time is now for Fremantle. With West Coast set to enter the competition in 2020 and share Western Australia’s talent, 2019 is the year the Dockers must make strides towards being a dominant side.
Grade: C
Highlight: Fremantle’s five-point win over Melbourne in Round 3 at Fremantle Oval was a triumph of efficiency and poise. The highly-fancied Demons had the match all on their terms in the first quarter with 15 Inside 50s to nil but rued their wasteful inaccuracy when the Dockers claimed a 6.0 to 4.7 win. Kara Donnellan instigated a Fremantle fightback with a fine captain’s performance that saw her side kick the next four goals before really facing the acid test when Melbourne returned fire to take the lead into the final break. The final quarter was a staring contest and the Dockers didn’t blink – goals to Melissa Caulfield and revelatory debutant Emily McGuire saw Fremantle take the lead and a desperate smother by another first-year player in Leah Mascall halted a final Melbourne surge.
Best & Fairest Prediction: Dana Hooker. Eyebrows were raised last year when Hooker won the inaugural Best & Fairest Award over Kara Donnellan but there will be no such quibbles this year when Hooker goes back-to-back. When Fremantle was good, the 27-year old midfielder was good. When Fremantle was bad, Hooker was still good, providing the strength and consistency that is the calling card of a champion. She had four more clearances and one more contested possession than any other player and was seventh for disposals, averaging 17.6 a game.
Collingwood Magpies
2017: 5th
2018: 6th
In a word: Second verse, same as the first. Collingwood lost their first three games, just as in 2017. Then, the Pies came home strong to claim three wins. The only difference was their ladder finish of sixth rather than fifth. But don’t go calling 2018 a waste because Wayne Siekman’s team has found strengths and capabilities that seemed beyond them in their inaugural season – hell, even when the Pies were outstripped by GWS in Round 3 just over a month ago.
Once it became clear that the Giants were storming home to a win, the knives were out for Siekman and his side with questions becoming media damnations. The forward line was overloaded and dysfunctional. The midfield was a litany of dud draftees. In between, there were code-hoppers, veterans and a bunch of others who had either reached their ceilings or never would while at the Holden Centre. Nothing seemed less likely than a midseason revival when the Pies travelled to Alice Springs to take on a Melbourne side steamrolling towards a Grand Final.
As the old saying goes, the best diamonds are forged under pressure. Collingwood trounced the stunned Demons with Christina Bernardi running amok, the much-maligned Moana Hope finally producing a performance worthy of the hype and Brittany Bonnici holding Daisy Pearce to nine disposals. From there, the Pies were just about unstoppable and finished the season second in scoring only to the Bulldogs. Indeed, from Round 3 onwards Collingwood was the best side in the competition with a blown chance against the Dogs in Round 5 their only blemish.
During pre-season, Siekman declared that his players were aiming to become multiple role players. It seemed a foolish ambition in the front half of the season, but the Magpies rallied behind their coach. Resilience, adaptability and four-quarter performances were the new hallmarks. Chloe Molloy is probably the best teenager in AFLW, Bernardi a clutch utility with a huge engine, Jaimee Lambert made the Bulldogs rue the day she left, Hope is finally playing without an eye on the headlines and who knows how good key defender Iilish Ross could be after her first season of senior football.
Grade: B
Highlight: The boilover against Melbourne was the biggest shock but the clinical trouncing of eventual runners-up Brisbane in Round 6 was the performance that set the compass for the Pies of 2019. Having travelled interstate without suspended captain Steph Chiocci, the Pies blitzed the Lions with four goals in the first 13 minutes in tropical rain. This was not a Frankenstein team fluking a victory; this was a confident and committed machine that had an answer for every question that a highly-fancied team could pose. The margin ballooned out to 32 points before some junk-time Brisbane goals cut the final gap to a most misleading 14. Collingwood’s ball movement was so accurate and consistent that it didn’t matter that Brisbane actually won every statistic from disposals to Inside 50s.
Best & Fairest Prediction: Christina Bernardi. Was there a more improved player in 2018 than Bernardi? A season after she had been just another unreliable player in an unreliable team, the small forward stood tall for her side in every match. Bernardi’s hands, fitness, disposal and composure improved out of sight and she was arguably best afield for her side in all three of their wins against Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. The newly-confident Bernardi of 2018 averaged 4.4 more disposals and 2.5 more marks while her goal-kicking tally went from two to nine. NAB Rising Star shoo-in Chloe Molloy may threaten her claim to the Best & Fairest Award, but the youngster will doubtless rack up the medal a few times over her career. For 2018, think Christina Bernardi.
GWS Giants
2017: 8th
2018: 5th
In a word: Easybeats no more. After fulfilling their widely-predicted wooden spoon in 2017, the Giants replaced Tim Schmidt with former Fitzroy coach Alan McConnell and set about vitalising themselves for the new season. Spirited but seemingly season-ending losses to Melbourne and Carlton had the footy public shrugging and suggesting that even an ex-AFL coach couldn’t work miracles within 12 months. Yet when things clicked into place for GWS, they clicked so hard that opponents were cut into ribbons. A Round 3 drought-breaker against Collingwood was followed by a soggy draw against Adelaide in a match the Giants had largely dominated before stunning wins over the Bulldogs and Fremantle reignited their Grand Final chances. Falling like a house of cards in the de facto preliminary final against Brisbane ended their season on a disappointing note but by then the girls from Blacktown were everyone’s second-favourite team. McConnell started the game plan from contested ball and developed outwards: between their hot-streak of Round 3 to Round 6, the Giants improved their contested possessions week on week from 93 to 109. The Giants’ trade and draft work both inside and outside of NSW flew under the radar but paid dividends: the recruitment of Collingwood’s Alicia Eva and the drafting of a remarkable footballer in 36-year old Croweater Courtney Gum gave the midfield some muscle. Unexpected foot-soldiers like Victorian veteran Tanya Hetherington, Carnacon-born Cora Staunton and ex-Demon Pepa Randall strengthened the spine. These new additions relieving the workload allowed captain Amanda Farrugia, Rebecca Beeson, Jess Dal Pos and Nicola Barr room to breathe; they averaged 13, 11, 11 and 10 disposals respectively. Although her form faded late in the season, Phoebe McWilliams established herself as a prime contender for AFLW’s best key forward as she kicked six goals in the first three matches.
Grade: A
Highlight: GWS’ champagne Round 6 performance against the Bulldogs ignited the fires of belief and admiration amongst the public. The Giants kicked seven of the last nine goals to storm home against the premiers as McConnell’s defensive one-on-ones turned up trump cards every time: Nicola Barr towelled up Monique Conti, Tanya Hetherington shut down Bonnie Toogood while marshalling the troops from full back, Pepa Randall held leading goal-scorer Brooke Lochland touchless and Courtney Gum blanketed Emma Kearney in the second half before being moved forward to sink a goal in the final quarter. A three-goal-to-none final quarter when the match was on the line was concrete proof that from hereon in the Giants should be regarded as very, very serious opposition.
Best & Fairest Prediction: The Giants’ Best & Fairest is hotly contested with Alicia Eva and Courtney Gum preparing for a heavyweight bout. Eva was hands down the best trade of the season, averaging 17.9 touches (fourth in AFLW) and 7.4 tackles a game in the engine room and ascending to a leadership position with impressive ease. Her 23 touches in the wet against Adelaide was her highest haul but, as with many of her teammates, her coup de grâce came in Round 6 against the Bulldogs - her 19 touches were crucial in kickstarting her side’s comeback before a highlight reel snap from the pocket sealed the win. South Australian-born Gum was the raging bull to Eva’s poise. A booming but accurate kick, phenomenally strong in the packs and cold as ice delivering in clutch situations, Gum had more clearances than any other Giant while playing as a forward/mid. She led the Giants to victory with last quarter goals against Collingwood and the Bulldogs. Adelaide coach Bec Goddard passed on 36-year old Gum in 2017 for being too old. A few sleepless nights ahead there.
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