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This weekend marked round three of the AFLW season, showcasing the form of a new generation of women who have had uninterrupted pathways to elite football for the first time.
AFLW is growing ever more popular with an increasingly diverse audience; this round drew impressive crowds, but also its fair share of controversy.
Here's four of the key conversations among the league — and its fans.
AFLW must compete for attention and sponsorship
This time last year, Western Bulldogs president Peter Gordon attacked the AFL for its decision to launch a gimmicky men's competition named AFLX in the middle of the AFLW season.
Gordon argued that given the AFLW budget had been slashed, the AFLX was effectively drawing attention and sponsorship away from women's football. The great irony, argued Gordon, was the competition was coming not from another sporting code, but the AFL itself.
This year Gordon was at it again, arguing that AFLX should not be played during the AFLW season, if at all. Critically, as Richard Hinds points out, the men playing in AFLX will receive more than $50,000 each for a few hours of modified football — while the majority of AFLW players are paid just $13,400 for an entire season.
That AFLX is being staged this Friday night — the most coveted football slot of the week, relegating AFLW to Saturday and Sunday — adds salt to the wound.
The issue reared its head again on Friday, when reigning premiers the Western Bulldogs took on premiership favourites the Kangaroos. Despite this being a hotly anticipated clash, the game was broadcast only on Foxtel, while the men's cricket Big Bash League played on Channel Seven.
In the Big Bash League crowd at Marvel Stadium was Marcus Bontempelli, who appeared boundary side on TV wearing an AFLX "Bolts" t-shirt to promote the upcoming tournament.
It was a bad look from a club whose president had come out so strongly against the AFLX earlier in the week, especially given Bontempelli's AFLW clubmates were simultaneously toughing it out in a grudge match with a team led by former best and fairest and premiership player Emma Kearney.
Women are delivering the scores AFL were after
In season two, there was drama aplenty when the AFL decided, after one round of play, that it was unhappy with "low-scoring" AFLW matches and what it saw as an abundance of congestion.
Famously, the league issued clubs with a memo instructing them how to play (including preferred formations), prompting rage from some players who were affronted by what Nicole Livingstone claimed was an effort to make the brand more "attractive" to fans.
Since then, the AFL has further tweaked AFLW rules in an effort to free up scoring, but the problem was arguably a lot simpler to solve than head office realised.
In 2019, we are bearing witness to the first generation of women who have had "uninterrupted" pathways to AFLW, meaning they have been able to play football all the way through childhood without having to stop playing at 14 (when girls' football pathways historically ended). And with this wave are coming ever-higher scores.
Maddie Prespakis is arguably the best example. The Carlton midfielder, who had 21 disposals, three goals and several assists against GWS, started Auskick at age four and continued playing with the boys at Romsey before switching to play with women at 15. The flow-on effects are clear, with Carlton this round achieving its highest-ever AFLW score.
Now, thanks to the AFLW's new pathways to elite football for women, the next generation of girls can follow in Prespakis's footsteps — without having to play with boys.
Splitting the league's best teams is proving controversial
When the AFL last year announced it would shorten the ALFW season (despite adding two new teams), players and fans were angry. As a compromise, the AFL eventually said the season would be seven weeks long, albeit still two games too short for each team to play each other once.
Instead, the AFLW teams were divided into "conference A" and "conference B", with the top two teams of each to play off in the finals.
In dividing the team into two conferences, the AFL gambled on their ability to come up with two evenly matched pools based on last year's ladder positions. But as any footy fan knows, it is impossible to predict who will rise and fall in a season based on the previous year's form.
This has been rammed home after three rounds where conference A teams have continued to significantly outperform conference B teams, including surprise packet Fremantle, who sit undefeated and second in conference A. Tellingly, in the nine crossover games between the conferences this season, conference A teams have won all nine encounters.
In a nightmare for the AFL, it looks increasingly likely that the top five teams of season three will all be in conference A (of which only two can make finals), meaning lesser teams (such as Carlton, who currently top conference B with just one win) will face off in the semi-finals.
Melbourne not the centre of the footy universe
Melburnians like to think the football universe revolves around them, and some were disappointed and surprised to find no games in Melbourne in week three. On Friday, it looked like this could impact attendance, with 3,123 at a 21,000 capacity stadium in Launceston making for some empty-looking stands on TV.
But the numbers were more promising — and contributed to a better "feel" — across four other states and smaller grounds, with 5,443 turning out at Fremantle Oval, 4,227 at Hickey Park in Brisbane, 3,823 at Blacktown in Sydney and 4,433 at Norwood Oval in Adelaide.
Norwood is fast establishing itself as one of the best boutique AFLW venues, with renovations, 34 degree heat and humidity failing to deter the locals.
Those in attendance were treated to a vintage Erin Phillips performance, with the 2017 competition champion and premiership captain proving that her best is unrivalled. At half time, she had 15 disposals and three goals (while Geelong had just two).
It is role-models like Phillips who are inspiring greater numbers of women and girls to take to football for the first time.
Kate O'Halloran is a sportswriter and former Victorian cricketer. She hosts AFLW radio show Kick Like a Girl 12:00-1:00pm Mondays on RRR and is writing a Monday column on the AFLW for the ABC.
Topics: sport, australian-football-league, australia