The AFLW’s competitive imbalance unpacked 10 seasons in
A decade into AFLW and the dream of an even competition remains distant. Eliza Reilly unpacks the imbalance between the league’s top clubs and the rest.
The AFL’s ultimate utopia is an AFLW competition where any team can win on any given day.
But 10 seasons into the league, rarely, if ever, has that been the case.
The AFLW’s big four, North Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne, have long terrorised their opponents, winning seven of the eight premierships contested since 2017.
And the gap between and the best and the rest has again been stark so far this season.
Seven teams have scored 100+ points in the history of the competition. Four of them have come in the first three rounds of 2025.
So far this year, the average winning margin has been 32 points, seven points clear of the next highest season average. And in round two, four of the nine games were decided by 70 or more points.
No team epitomises the gap between the top and middle rung of teams quite like Fremantle.
After finishing fifth last year, the Dockers have lost their past two games to the Kangaroos and Lions by a combined margin of 170 points. Fremantle also set the unwanted records of conceding the biggest score (114) and biggest margin (100) in AFLW history.
Gold Coast has also conceded 100+ points in back-to-back weeks and currently has the lowest percentage in the league with 32.9. But experts say the Suns will be a force in a few years’ time thanks to an influx of academy stars.
The Kangaroos are currently on the longest winning streak in AFLW history. Melbourne bounced back from an underwhelming 2024 campaign and currently sits second. Adelaide and Brisbane don’t look as threatening as they have in previous years, but the gap between their best and worst is minimal.
So is the competitive imbalance getting worse?
“Maybe the gap is being highlighted a bit more because of the improvement of the competition,” AFLW pioneer and current Eagles coach Daisy Pearce said.
“When teams are on top, they can score heavily now because of the skill level in the game, so there’s definitely been a bit of that.
“I think there’s some great challengers now.
“Our opposition this week, Port Adelaide, had a clinical performance on the weekend. Sydney has had an impressive start to the season. Essendon are 3-0. Hawthorn made a big jump up last year.
“I don’t think the gap is maybe as big as it once was. I think that’s a good thing for the competition moving forward.”
We explore what’s behind the lopsided results and whether the big four are still as formidable as they once were.
FITNESS AND FUNDAMENTALS
For a long time, Adelaide, Brisbane and Fremantle were considered the fittest teams in the AFLW.
And it’s no surprise that the trio spent a long time at the top of the mountain.
Put simply, if you aren’t fit enough or strong enough, you can’t execute.
Players who have joined Brisbane from opposition clubs have been blown away by the volume and intensity of running the Lions complete during pre-season.
It’s why the next rung of clubs have struggled to curtail Brisbane’s offensive running patterns and spread from the contest.
Hawthorn captain Emily Bates said on the eve of last season that the club’s running regime had gone “through the roof” during coach Daniel Webster’s first winter in charge.
Bates estimated that the Hawks had run at least eight more kilometres per week during the 2024 pre-season compared to the year before, as Webster brought across his knowledge of the Lions’ renowned high performance program and pushed his players in a way they had not previously been challenged.
The Hawks bounced from 14th with a 3-7 record in their second season to surge into second place with just a single defeat for the entire home and away campaign.
“Everything we’re doing is all about intensity and power – ‘what speed are you doing things at?’” Bates said last year.
“The intensity is through the roof in drills … all our training drills are at high speed, because that’s how we want to play.”
Fremantle once had a rule that if you didn’t run a certain 2km time, you couldn’t play.
Clubs looking to bridge the gap have put an emphasis on fitness.
West Coast and Greater Western Sydney have both hired a full-time head of high performance to oversee their strength and conditioning programs.
The Eagles poached Sam Batterton from Melbourne’s all-conquering AFLW program and the proof is in the pudding.
West Coast charged down St Kilda with a five-goal final term in round three and the club has been astounded with how much the players have been able to improve their gym and running capabilities in one pre-season.
“Last year, if I’m being honest, nobody could be bothered with gym,” second-year midfielder Jess Renstch said. “This year, we’ve hit it with a different mindset. We’re really testing ourselves and everyone is striving for PBs.”
Experts say it takes two to three years to see the results, whereas teams like Brisbane and Adelaide have had an eight-year head start.
As Pearce said, the fittest teams are also the most skilled teams.
“In the biggest moments, across 80 minutes of football or thereabouts, they’re able to keep playing their way and executing their skills,” she said.
Efficiency is what has made North Melbourne such a threat.
The Kangaroos boasted a disposal efficiency of 72 per cent against Fremantle in round three, the highest recorded so far this season.
The average disposal efficiency across the opening three rounds is 61.39 per cent.
The transition to 12-month contracts has also allowed clubs to run non-compulsory sessions beyond official pre-season contact hours. Many clubs had already been training for months in an unofficial capacity by the time pre-season started in May.
Kicking, kicking and more kicking is where some clubs are prioritising their contact hours, even scheduling extra sessions if required.
RESOURCING
A stretched soft cap has long been a point of contention for AFLW clubs, but equally an opportunity to gain an advantage.
The AFLW soft cap currently sits at $1.175 million and will increase by $200,000 in the next two years.
It pales in comparison to the AFL soft cap, which is set to surpass $9 million by 2027.
With such a limited cap to work with, clubs have to work out where their priorities lie.
For example, Brisbane coach Craig Starcevich, head of women’s football Bree Brock and high performance manager Matt Green have all been at the Lions since day one. The Lions didn’t employ a list manager until 2023, with Starcevich and Brock leading recruitment up until that point.
Other clubs employ two full-time recruiting staff. Most head coaches are now full-time.
The average salary of assistant coaches sits at around $20,000, but new demands, including daytime training, have put significant strain on their availability. Most balance two vocations.
“I had three assistant coaches in five seasons,” former Bulldogs coach Nathan Burke told this masthead last year. “Every single year I turned over at least two of them, because it’s just not sustainable.”
West Coast, while criticised for doing so, has previously employed assistant coaches in the club’s community department. It means they’re full-time employees and their salary is split between the soft cap and the community arm of the business, which doesn’t have a rigid cap in place.
Clubs can’t use the same doctor across both AFL and AFLW programs because they need to be equipped in female-specific areas like mental and pelvic health, so they’re mostly contractors.
“You need to figure out where your priorities lie,” Fremantle head of women’s football Claire Heffernan said. “You’re constantly juggling to see what area is the most important to invest in. It’s challenging at times.”
While some clubs are pushing for bigger list sizes, one list manager is adamant that any additional money should be put towards the soft cap so clubs can adequately structure and resource their AFLW programs.
They questioned whether the AFL should introduce minimum requirements, such as every club employing a full-time head of high performance, to help bridge the gap.
LIST MANAGEMENT
Fans were up in arms after former Western Bulldogs coach Nathan Burke revealed the league blocked certain trades during the infancy of the AFLW.
But in reality, it was in the best interests of the competition.
The ability to veto trades was written into the rules and used as a lever to save clubs from their own incompetence, even if both parties agreed to the trade.
“Back then, some clubs had no idea what they were doing,” one former official said.
The AFL also has the power to block trades in the men’s competition and has done so on several occasions.
A big consideration is the league’s expansion rules and their role in the current competitive balance problem.
In a bid to fast-track new clubs, the AFL designed a suite of list concessions ranging from expansion signing periods, the ability to sign mature-age players, additional draft picks and extra list spots.
The lack of compensation for players irked foundation clubs.
Perennial contender Brisbane was savaged by expansion, losing 16 players to new clubs in less than two years.
“That’s fine to say the competition needs to expand and we need players going here and there, but it never helps us,” Starcevich bemused ahead of the final round of expansion back in 2022.
“Because we’re the ones who put all the time and effort in developing players, developing relationships and then what do you do? Just go and pull the rug out from – it drives me frickin’ mad.”
The Bulldogs, premiers back in 2018, also lost 13 players to expansion, including the likes of Katie Brennan, Mon Conti and Emma Kearney.
The four clubs involved in the final round of expansion in 2022, Hawthorn, Port Adelaide, Essendon and Sydney, have all played finals thanks to generous concessions. Three of them currently sit in the top eight after enjoying an undefeated start to the season.
The clubs introduced in 2020, Gold Coast, Richmond, St Kilda and West Coast, have only played finals twice between them. The Saints and Eagles are the only two AFLW teams yet to play finals.
On the flipside, North Melbourne has used the means available to build one of the best lists in the competition.
The addition of Libby Birch on the eve of the 2024 season was the clincher and weeks after completing the perfect season, North’s list got even better, luring Eilish Sheerin from Richmond.
The Kangaroos are the only expansion club considered part of the ‘big four.’ The other three, Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne, have all replenished on the run and refused to bottom out.
The quartet have also benefited greatly from the partnerships they formed pre-AFLW.
Starcevich and Brock both worked for AFL Queensland before spearheading the Lions program and have helped build the club’s female academy into the powerhouse it is today. Adelaide’s alignment with the Northern Territory yielded two premierships.
North Melbourne had a long-standing partnership with women’s footy juggernaut Melbourne Uni and Tasmania. The Demons were one of the two inaugural clubs to partake in a women’s football exhibition series, along with the Bulldogs.
The AFL also offered incentives, such as additional services agreements, to players to join expansion clubs.
After leading Melbourne to its first premiership in 2022, skipper Pearce quipped, “we don’t give away cars to players that come to us.” It was believed to have been a dig at North Melbourne and the club’s partnership with Mazda, but there is no suggestion the Kangaroos breached any rules.
Big moments 🤠Chloe Molloy#AFLWCatsSwanspic.twitter.com/uv6Vc4cRd4
— AFL Women's (@aflwomens) August 30, 2025
EXPANSION ISSUES
The Swans landed Chloe Molloy in a huge coup and she’s had a huge impact so far this season coming off an ACL injury.
It’s a different story in the west of Sydney.
The Giants are the worst-performed inaugural AFLW club, winning 25 games in 10 seasons so far and only featuring once in finals.
It makes New South Wales a fascinating case study in expansion, with Sydney and GWS currently pillars apart. But Giants coach Cameron Bernasconi believes that disadvantaged foundation clubs will eventually course correct.
“I think when expansion comes in, you’re trying to fast-track the new teams to do well,” he said this week. “So in the process of that, they get, you know, top-end picks and more list spots.
“And I understand as a competition, you have to do that, but sometimes that takes a few years to then wash out. So the sides who are probably down the bottom of the ladder around that period, it takes them longer to get back to the top because they don’t get access to first-round draft picks.
“So Swans had, I think, first five picks in the New South Wales state-based draft when I first started, and we were down the bottom. So it takes a while to be washed out.”
The introduction of a national draft will undoubtedly help equalise the competition.
Previously, the state-based draft forced clubs to try and build a list with one hand tied behind their back in weaker talent pools like WA and NSW.
“That first year we had 10 weeks to build a program,” Outgoing Sydney chief executive Tom Harley said.
“I think AFLW is just evolving as a competition.
“It’s moved from a state-based draft, which was actually really prohibitive to certainly the Swans and the Giants, to a national draft. And the talent I still think is not necessarily totally dispersed.”
But that doesn’t mean that clubs still won’t make poor decisions at the draft. With a national talent pool to keep tabs on, only recently have clubs started to invest more resources into scouts and recruiters.
Talent experts say that some clubs do it better than others and they still feel like players are being missed. But unlike in the AFL where margins are fine and first-round picks can dictate a club’s fortunes for the next decade, clubs are still able to take good players later in the draft.
There’s been a push to do away with the four-tier salary cap system and give list managers the ability to massage player payments within a salary cap. Others believe it will put clubs at risk of making poor list management decisions and investing too much in too few.
Currently, two players per club sit in tier one and are the highest-paid at the club. Six reside in tiers two and three, and the other 16 make up tier four.
Originally published as The AFLW’s competitive imbalance unpacked 10 seasons in
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