Port Adelaide keen to field a team in the AFLW — and the sooner it happens the better
Port Adelaide has had enough of the Crows’ monopoly over the AFLW in South Australia. The only question remains: when will they be allowed to join?
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Port Adelaide has had enough of the Crows’ monopoly over the AFLW in South Australia and has revealed that as soon as the AFL begins discussions about issuing the next round of team licences, the Power will be at the ready to bid for one.
Port Adelaide’s general manager of football Chris Davies told The Advertiser that during top-level discussions with the AFL in November, the league reiterated to him its intention to have an 18-club AFLW competition.
The only question remaining is: when?
For the 2019 season, two new expansion clubs — Geelong and North Melbourne — will join the league, followed by Richmond, West Coast, St Kilda and Gold Coast in 2020.
That leaves Port Adelaide, Sydney, Essendon and Hawthorn as the only clubs without an AFLW side.
“We’re waiting for the AFL to open up their bid process for the next time that they’re allowing teams into the AFLW and the next time that happens, we’ll be involved in that,” Davies said.
“Our expectation is that the four clubs that still don’t have a team … the AFL does want those clubs in the AFLW and I’ve had meetings where the AFL have confirmed that that’s what they want ultimately. And whenever that is, we will absolutely be involved.
“The club made a decision in 2015 to focus initially on the China strategy, and instead to get involved in women’s football at a junior level.
“Are we being left out? Our preference is to have a side in that competition and the sooner the better.”
Davies said he had no indication as yet as to whether 2021 was looking like the date for further expansion.
Crows general manager of football operations Phil Harper said the club understood that Port would eventually enter the competition, but only once South Australia had developed the depth of talent to support two elite teams.
“It’s a bit of a funny one and it’s not often I would say this, but I think Port actually want us to be good, because the better we are then the quicker they’ll get a licence,” he said.
“I think the rivalry that exists between Port and Adelaide would continue on into the women’s and it would be a great thing for the sport.”
Harper, however, surmised that 2021 might be too soon for Port to enter the AFLW.
“To be honest, the two teams coming in this year will be fine; the four teams the year after will really stretch the resources coming through,” he said.
“But if you fasttrack to 2023, that wave of participants who started playing a couple of years ago will be 18, 19, 20-year olds and I’m very confident that we’ll be able to have the whole 18 teams in, at the latest by the mid-2020s, and of course Port will be one of those.
“It might be earlier if we can be good, which we want to be, and that will mean Port can come in earlier, which they want to be.
“For once Port are probably half barracking for us.”
And as the AFLW continues to expand — and pay its players more (a pay rise was confirmed for AFLW player last month) — football becomes a serious sporting option for young elite athletes.
And it’s why more SA girls, like Adelaide United training squad member Evelyn Goldsmith, are juggling two or more sports.
At 18, Goldsmith has been playing soccer at a state-representative level since she was 11 and last season had a Reds contract as a back-up goal keeper.
But as a member of Port Adelaide’s inaugural Women’s Aboriginal AFL Academy she has developed the skills and confidence on the footy field and will pull on the boots for SMOSH West Lakes this season. (She’s also just become a member of the Crows new Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Female Football Academy).
Next year, she will juggle SMOSH weekend games with her Friday night soccer matches for Adelaide Uni.
There’s no doubt she’s on a pathway to elite sport in both soccer and football and she sees the likes of Crows Jenna McCormick — who is currently playing with Brisbane Roar’s W League side, and will return to Adelaide at Christmas to commence pre-season with the Crows — as inspiration.
“Jenna loves both sports, but it must be hard both mentally and physically on your body,” she says.
“It’s good that there are more choices though, for women.”
Harper said the Crows had a strong policy to work collaboratively with other sports.
“We’re doing that at the moment with Maisie Nankivell and netball, and we’ve done that for three years for Jenna McCormick and soccer and have done it before with Anne Hatchard with basketball,” he said.
“Once somebody is paying them a full-time wage, then that sport can demand that that player stay with them, but at the moment, none of them is getting paid enough for a full-time wage.
“We really do bend over backwards to work with the other sports to give them the opportunity.”
But Port — and the other three remaining non-AFLW sides — may have competition for the remaining licences.
AFL New Zealand has told The Advertiser that one of their key goals in the expansion of Aussie Rules in their country is to have a team in Australia’s women’s league within five years.
AFLNZ community and communications manager Tom O’Keeffe said there were numerous NZ teams playing in Australian leagues including the newly announced Auckland Tuatara which has joined the Australian Baseball League as an international expansion club.
“We want a women’s team in the AFLW,” he said.
“The game’s developing well here … why are we any different to a Geelong or a Gold Coast?
“We want to put the pressure on the AFL to say: ‘Don’t forget about us and if you invest in it, we can make it work and sooner, rather than later’.”
New Zealand’s top-level women’s AFL side is called the Kahu (Hawk) and their junior team beat Port Adelaide’s Women’s Aboriginal AFL Academy side in Auckland by 10 points in late November.
Kahu midfielder Kylie McGahan, 15 — daughter All Black Paul McGahan — said she loved AFL and was excited by the possibility of one day playing in Australia.
“The amount of skills needed to play is just amazing,” she said.
“Dad wasn’t very keen on it at the start, he thought I’d get injured for netball, but after having a look, he really enjoyed it.”
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