With the third season of AFLW drawing ever so near, the negative comments posted from the Average Joe grows. With every post about the AFLW, there are comments comparing the game to watching grass grow or paint dry, or it would just simply put the Average Joe to sleep. It is okay to say you're not a fan of it – people aren't a fan of a number of things in life.
If you were to ask me what I thought about these comments, I would tell you that those comments are just plain ignorant. Those that speak ill of women's football perhaps just don't understand that the women's game is developing, and it will develop for quite sometime. Perhaps it's not at the same skill level as the men's right now, but it will be in due time.
Women's Football has come a long way since the Victorian Women's Football League held its first competition in 1981. In that year, it was only just four teams that competed in an open-age competition. But since then, the competition has had more teams come in to the point where it became a multi-division league.
Only just recently, it became the VFL women's – which is pretty much a female version of the VFL, with all 10 Victorian AFL clubs either affiliated with a VFLW team (Like North Melbourne associated with Melbourne University or St. Kilda with Southern Saints) or their own standalone side (Collingwood, Western Bulldogs and Geelong for some examples). And a bit like the VFL, the VFLW, I feel anyway, is used to continue to develop the skills of all the AFLW players and perhaps find new recruits as well.
But why is it only in recent years, that the women are getting a major league of their own? In this day and age, we've seen female athletes such as Sam Kerr – dominating for the Matildas in the international soccer stage – as well as Ellyse Perry, who is arguably the biggest name in female cricket today. Not just for the Sydney Sixers in the Big Bash, but for the nation's women's cricket team. It was only a matter of time before the AFL had recognised heroines such as Daisy Pearce and Katie Brennan.
One strange thing I picked up about Women's Football is that when we go back in time, it was actually endorsed by some of the VFL's biggest names. In 1947, Jack Dyer, who was captain-coach of Richmond at the time, once umpired a game of Women's Football – this drew a crowd of 9000 people. Player's such as Essendon's John Coleman and Collingwood's Ron Todd held pre-game/half-time goal-kicking contests and Geelong – who are about to embark on their first AFLW season this year – once included a women's game as part of a past players' day at Kardinia Park in 1954.
The Western Bulldogs – back then known as Footscray – also were strong advocates of Women's Football. Led by captain-coach Charlie Sutton and high-profile players such as Ted Whitten and Jack Collins, they would draft female footballers and hold exhibition games to raise funds for causes such as the local hospital in Footscray.
Yet, it never seemed to garner much traction. Sure, people came in the thousands to watch exhibition games and there was a league in Victoria for the women that wanted to play football. As the years went by, that competition did grow, but for reasons unknown to me, the VFL/AFL never really invested into women's football until 2010, when it was revealed that there was a severe lack of numbers in local leagues across the nation.
In 2009, only 80,000 females were registered footballers when the AFL conducted their review. Just to show how far women's football has come and how much it has grown in such a short period of time, in a review in 2017, the AFL recorded that out of 1,547,915 people that were registered football players, 30 percent of those were women. For those doing the math, that is 465,374 – compared to the 80,000 nine years ago, it is a massive leap in participation and I have no doubt that it will continue to rise as the years go by.
It's because the AFL believed that if they could get players such as Pearce, Brennan along with players such as Darcy Vescio, Emma Kearney and Ellie Blackburn – on a professional level, it can inspire girls to start taking footy up at a younger age. History was made in 2013 with the first-ever AFL women's exhibition match between Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs, which was to be a curtain raiser of the men's game between the same teams.
That game drew about 7,500 people and the game was won comfortably by Melbourne. This was seen as a positive leap in bringing a professional women's league into the AFL. Over the next few years, Melbourne and the Bulldogs would play off in exhibition games that coincided with matches with men's teams. In 2015, both exhibition matches would be broadcasted live on Channel 7 – something that would've made men snicker and sneer all those years ago.
It was the latter of those two games that made me believe in women's football. Under the roof of Marvel Stadium late in the 2015 season, I watched the Bulldogs try to make a spirited comeback after being down by as much as five goals. It wasn't just the skill that was on display, but it was the courage, the tenacity and the desire for the leather product that grabbed my attention. They showed as much toughness as the men did, maybe even more. To this day, they still are as tough as the men – no doubt.
Over the following 12 months, the AFL held exhibition games across the nation. Games in South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales featured the best talent in each respective state. Fremantle, West Coast, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sydney and GWS all represented in games across the 2016 year. South Australia played New South Wales at the Adelaide Oval in a close game.
The last exhibition game of 2016 was considered somewhat of an 'All-Star' match between the Bulldogs and Melbourne, pitting the best of women's football against each other. This was won by the Bulldogs and won comfortably. More importantly was the momentum from the past few years had garnered a lot of traction – it was a big plus for women and young girls who wanted to play in the big leagues but couldn't because they simply weren't men.
The AFLW was born on the back of those exhibition games – it was born on the back of talented athletes that want to play this great game. The All-Star game was pretty much the icing on the cake. The first-ever AFLW game drew in a sell-out crowd and numbers throughout the first round drew numbers of 9200, 10100 and 6500 and these were at semi-professional football grounds. Consider that a win for women's footy.
Erin Phillips was the game's best player in the inaugural season. Before her first year, she had been in the WNBA for quite some time, but she always loved her footy. She dominated games that year and won the league's first-ever best and fairest award. Her team mate Ebony Marinoff won the league's Rising Star award and is one of many players to lead the AFLW in the future, at just 21 years of age today.
The biggest complaint in the AFLW today is the lack of scoring, which has seen many a snide remark over social media. The AFL has tried to rectify this, but the reality of this situation is that this a problem that will be solved over time. As the years go by, you will watch these players get better and better in games and sooner or later, it'll become a product that draws more people to games. It doesn't help that the AFL have changed up certain rules that differ from the men's game, to try and make it more unique - why can't they play the same rules as the men?
You should also consider that there are now pathways for young, aspiring female footballers, such as the women's TAC Cup, as well as the National Under-18 Championships and an AFLW Draft that is similar to the men. Women's Football has come a long way since the VWFL started and this now gives players such as Chloe Molloy, Monique Conti, Maddie Prespakis, Nina Morrison and so many more every chance to become superstars in the AFLW.
I am just as excited as ever to see the next installment of the AFLW. Despite all the negative attention that it has received over the past two years – the 'Spirit of the Game' nonsense, 'Mickey Mouse Tournament' comparisons and all those critics who continue to blast a league that has only just developed some legs, I believe that the AFLW is going to get only stronger from here on out.