AFLW Moneyball: Irish import Aileen Gilroy Hawks bound, Swans set to land Pies forward Aliesha Newman
A former Kangaroo and Irish import has provided a late highlight to the AFLW expansion signing deadline, joining the Hawks with just minutes to spare.
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The AFL Women’s expansion signing window has officially closed — but not without a late flurry of signatures.
Just weeks indicating to North Melbourne she could be staying at Arden Street, Irish import Aileen Gilroy is headed to Hawthorn while Collingwood speedster Aliesha Newman is on the move to Sydney.
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Essendon also landed key defender Ellyse Gamble from the Western Bulldogs, with the 24-year-old set to link up with former Dogs teammate Bonnie Toogood at the expansion club.
Gilroy — a former Gaelic player with Mayo — had been widely expected to play at North Melbourne next season after receiving interest from the Hawks, but the dying minutes of the AFLW expansion signing period on Monday provided one last swoop with her signature secured by Hawthorn.
Gilroy, 29, was also employed in the club shop at the Kangaroos.
“Gilly’s contribution to our program has been significant over her three years with us,” Kangaroos AFLW football performance and talent manager Rhys Harwood said.
“She became a much-loved member of our team, both on and off the field. Her never-say-die attitude on field has been a hallmark of her game, and her ability to develop into an important cog of our backline was a credit to her workrate and attitude, since the moment she arrived.
“While it’s disappointing to lose Gilly, we understand the nature of the AFLW expansion environment means players are faced with incredibly tough decisions.
“Gilly will always be a North Melbourne person. Everyone at the club wishes her well in her next chapter.”
Newman, who started her career at Melbourne, played 14 matches for Collingwood and will reunite with former Pies assistant and now Swans senior coach Scott Gowans.
Newman joins a group including ex-Bulldog Brooke Lochland, former Roo Lexi Hamilton, former Pie and Tiger Sarah Dargan, ex-Demon Brenna Tarrant and former Giant Bec Privitelli who have signed for the Swans, who missed several of their big-name targets.
Collingwood have already lost Sophie Alexander, Ebony O’Dea and Bella Smith in the expansion window.
The sign and trade period for all other clubs opens on Tuesday.
AFLW RESISTS CONTROVERSIAL CONFERENCES
The AFL will resist a return to the controversial conference system in the upcoming women’s season, despite boosting the competition to 18 teams.
The full fixture is set to be finalised by the end of June.
Moneyball can also reveal clubs will be permitted an extra $50,000 to sit outside of the football department soft cap to fund allied health services for players, including medical, mental health and wellbeing resources.
The league and players signed a one-year pay deal last week that will see season seven remain at 10 games, with players set to push for a longer fixture in coming years.
Women’s league boss Nicole Livingstone confirmed “we’re not going to revisit conferences”.
She said the results from the recently-completed sixth season, as well as how clubs fair in the upcoming sign and trade periods would shape the fixture.
“Similar to what we’ve done in previous years where we’ve had 14 clubs, we look at how we split the ladder,” Livingstone said.
“So now we have 18 clubs … whilst we have a finishing order for (the existing) 14 clubs, (for) the four clubs (coming in), we will have a look at how sign and trade takes place in terms of departures and additions to clubs.
“But essentially we will split the ladder and then we will have a mandatory number of games that you will play against teams that are in that bottom part of the ladder and against teams in the top part of the ladder.
“It’s what we’ve done for the last few years as well in terms of fixturing. No conferences but we will be keeping an eye on how we fixture and who you play.”
Livingstone said the entire home and away fixture would be out by the end of next month in a bid to allow clubs and players an ability to plan.
“It will be the full home and away fixture, and we’ll have some slots where the finals series will be,” she told the Credit to the Girls podcast.
“If we have the opportunity to have some double-headers in the main season as well, we’d like to contemplate that.”
BLUE COULD DEE-PART
The hits keep coming for Carlton.
Young key defender Charlotte Wilson, who played in a grand final in her first season for the club back in 2019, is weighing up interest from grand finalists Melbourne.
The Blues have endured a challenging few weeks, with Madison Prespakis and Georgia Gee signing with Essendon, Grace Egan on the move to Richmond, Nicola Stevens having attracted interest from St Kilda and 2022 leading goalkicker Courtney Jones likely bound for the Gold Coast.
It seems coach Daniel Harford’s side will have a vastly different look next season, with
the Blues also understood to be in the frame to snare Pheobe McWilliams from Geelong.
The Dees have so far done well to keep expansion raiders at bay, with most of their top players set to back up again in August in a bid to go one step further.
While Jackie Parry looks headed for Geelong, the Dees are likely to pick-up Jordan Ivey in return, as well as Wilson.
LIVING ON A (LIST) PRAYER
In the words of the great Jon Bon, whoa-oh, they’re halfway there.
Victoria’s expansion outfits Essendon and Hawthorn have officially hit the halfway point of their list build with the Bombers securing a handful of players from existing clubs as they move into the home stretch of the expansion signing period.
Now former Saints Cat Phillips and Jacqui Vogt will be at Tullamarine next season, joining ex-Roo Daria Bannister.
It marks the third time Phillips has been part of a club’s inaugural year, having joined the Demons as a foundation player and then the Saints.
The Hawks aren’t expected to announce any more imminent signings, with VFLW trio Tamara Luke, Jenna Richardson and Tahlia Fellows their latest signatures.
Irish Gaelic star and basketballer Aine McDonagh is also reportedly on her way to Hawthorn.
DUNN DEAL?
Gold Coast could be further weakened by the growth of AFLW with captain Hannah Dunn understood to be considering a move to expansion club Port Adelaide.
Dunn, 30, is being targeted by Port, who also have interest in the Suns’ Kate Surman. Originally from Canberra, Dunn has played for Norwood and was a foundation member of the Gold Coast AFLW squad after a brief stint with Greater Western Sydney. Having previously played as a midfielder, she was shifted to defence in 2022 under Cameron Joyce. Forward Surman has also been a mainstay of Gold Coast’s side since its inception into the competition. The Suns have lost Sarah Perkins and Janet Baird to Hawthorn, but should gain Courtney Jones from Carlton.
LION QUEENS
The Brisbane Lions have done a mighty job retaining talent over the past month or so given how heavily opposition clubs have come for their players.
First there was Emily Bates, the AFLW league best and fairest winner chased by Hawthorn and Essendon before eventually recommitting to the 2021 premiers.
All-Australian pair Natalie Grider and Orla O’Dwyer were also chased heavily, while Jade Ellenger was a target of Sydney.
All of them are staying, and so too is Greta Bodey, an All-Australian squad member this year. Bodey was another player who had interest from rivals but she too will remain at the Lions, who had been badly hit in previous expansion rounds.
POLL POSITION
With footy fans having to choose between watching the Federal Election and several AFL games on Saturday night, another clash looms later this year.
The AFL’s confirmation last week that the next AFLW season would start in late August and feature a grand final on the last weekend in November means it will fall on the same weekend as the Victorian State Election, which is locked in for Saturday, November 26.
The AFL is always keen to maximise exposure for the women’s league so it will be interesting to see whether it gets creative when it comes to locking in a timeslot for the season seven decider.
FLIP ON THE FLY
On the first day of the AFLW’s expansion signing period on Tuesday, Port officially signed a number of players they’d previously announced: Gemma Houghton (Fremantle), Justine Mules (Adeaide), Angela Foley (Adelaide), Maria Moloney (Brisbane) and Laquoiya and Litonya Cockatoo-Motlap (Queensland).
Their key signing, Erin Phillips, was an omission. But Power fans needn’t worry – Phillips has already changed her Instagram profile to say she’s a Port footballer.
Meanwhile, the AFLW’s star player is holidaying in Dallas, Texas, in the United States with her wife, Tracy, and their three children. Tracy is American and has been separated from her family for almost three years because of the Covid-19 global pandemic.
The Phillips family are expected to spend a month overseas ahead of AFLW pre-season, starting in June.
While in Dallas, Phillips not only celebrated her 37th birthday with her American relatives, but the former Opal also headed to Indiana to celebrate the 10-year reunion with her former Indiana Fever teammates who took out the 2012 WNBA Championship title.
But in true Phillips style, she’s not sitting back and taking it easy while over there. She’s joined a specialist performance and recovery gym in Dallas, and is already working on keeping her body in peak condition ahead of pre-season starting on June 13.
HERE TO CROW
Speaking of gym work, Crows triple-premiership heroes Ebony Marinoff and Anne Hatchard returned to their West Lakes training facility on Wednesday to get a jump-start on pre-season in an effort to accomplish what no team has done yet in the history of the AFLW: win back-to-back premierships.
Marinoff, 24, said with the Crows set to hold their first pre-season training session on June 18, the players were all keen to keep the momentum going from season six’s grand final win and carry that into season seven.
“Hatchy and I were speaking about it today, that we’re so lucky that we can go around together again and be bigger and better this season,” she said.
“We just want to make sure that we’re at our best to make sure we’re impacting the team because that’s our job … it’s our job to be good and we need to make sure that we’re getting better.
“We’re certainly driven to do that so we can make sure that we’re the best one-two punch coming into next season.”
POWERING UP
Port Adelaide’s head coach Lauren Arnell has finished assembling her coaching panel, and she’s managed to poach a former Crows premiership player onto her bench.
SANFL veterans Dave Reynolds and Daniel Caire will join the already-appointed Hamish Hartlett as assistant coaches who will be assigned a line, while Renee Forth - a 2019 premiership winner - will join in a player development coaching role, along with fellow former Crow Clayton Lamb and Port Adelaide’s current SANFL captain Cam Sutcliffe.
Arnell said she was thrilled with her panel.
“Across the six people we’re bringing into the coaching group, what stands out for me is the varied areas of expertise and the simplicity of having really great people in these roles,” she said.
“That’s been a theme for us, having great people. I’m really excited we will have fantastic leaders developing our playing group.”
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