Win Sunday’s grand final against Brisbane or not, Pearce’s position as a women’s football great is already secureFootball’s women, a correspondent wrote in The Age in the 1970s, “are mere appendages to the game, extras in an all-male saga, tolerated but not taken seriously”. For so long, that’s how it was in football. Women washed our socks. They drove us to training. Leigh Matthews did psychological profiles of his Brisbane players’ wives and girlfriends “to assist their playing partners to be better footballers”.When a young Darebin Falcons player was taken as the No 1 pick in the inaugural national women’s draft, things were changing. It was six months after Julia Gillard’s misogyny speech. In the next few years, a woman...
The Dees and Lions will renew their rivalry on Sunday with a second premiership flag of 2022 up for grabsHere we are then. After plenty of twists and turns throughout the season, both on and off field, two teams remain and will face off on Sunday in the second AFLW grand final of the year. Brisbane and Melbourne were only separated by 0.3% at the top of the ladder at the end of the home-and-away season, so perhaps it is only fitting they’re the last two standing.On Friday night, at their home away from home on the Gold Coast, Brisbane did what they’ve done all season – they piled on the goals. After an arm wrestle in the first few...
The elimination finals went down to the wire and two more top quality games are expected this weekend, although not everyone will be able to watch liveTickets to the game at Richmond’s Swinburne Centre, which has a capacity of 2,500, sold out in nine minutes on Monday. The decision to host the match there was backed by the AFL due to higher-ranked Richmond’s preference, but has angered many fans of a sport fighting for growth. Continue reading...
Players and fans are making a strong stance for greater inclusion in the game through their guernsey designsWith only three rounds remaining in the regular season of the AFLW, this weekend’s Pride round is pivotal as teams make their last dash for the finals and look to cement their place in the top eight.That this round, which is important to so many fans and players of the women’s game, comes at such a meaningful time adds to its gravity and underlines the seriousness with which the issue of LGBTQ+ inclusion is taken within the sport. While rainbow flags, guernseys and socks will add colour and joy across all the grounds during round eight, the white-line fever will step up a...
Amid broader growth of the women’s game, a full compliment of teams will kick off the new season for the first timeSince the AFLW’s first game at Ikon Park in February 2017 – when the AFL memorably had to impose a lockout due to massively underestimated crowd numbers – women’s football has been on a rapidly upward trajectory. Participation rates have soared across the country and, ahead of the seventh instalment of the competition, which starts on Thursday, ticket sales have hit an unprecedented high. These are very promising times for the league.The inaugural clash between expansion sides Essendon and Hawthorn – one of the highlights of the opening round of fixtures this week – is testament to the increased...