AFL Women’s will adopt a five-team conference system, two-week finals series for 2019

ADELAIDE has endorsed the AFLW’s move to go to a conference system with the new-look 10-team league to be split in two for the 2019 season with seven home-and-away games and two-week finals series.

Emma Kearney streaks away from Brisbane defenders.

ADELAIDE has endorsed the AFLW’s move to go to a conference system with the league releasing next year’s format on Friday.

The national women’s league, in which the Crows were the inagural premiers in 2016, will be made up of two conferences of five as North Melbourne and Geelong join the competition in 2019.

Adelaide football administration manager Phil Harper, who sits on the AFLW’s competition committee, said it was a logical move as another four teams will join the competition in 2020 and it is one day likely to have 18 teams.

“Having a new competition is like having a new baby,” Harper said. “It has to walk and crawl before it can run but this is a great step forward. And we think it’s great that we now get two finals.”

Courtney Cramey of the Crows marks during the round seven AFLW match against Collingwood Magpies earlier this year. Picture: Quinn Rooney/Getty Images

The third season of AFLW will begin on February 2 and will see the 10 teams split into two pools.

The women will play seven home and away games and two weeks of finals.

The season will likely push into Round 2 of the men’s AFL competition, with league boss Gillon McLachlan not fazed.

“We can have more games and we’ll deal with the clashes as best we can,” he said on 3AW.

AFL head of women’s football Nicole Livingstone said it was implemented as a result of every team not being able to play every team once.

Western Bulldogs celebrate their 2018 premiership.

“We landed on conferences because part of our mantra with AFLW is to be unique and innovative, and we believe this is part of that progress,” she told the AFL website.

“We recognise in having a seven-game home and away season not everyone will play each other once, so conferences allow for fairer ladders that reflect that, rather than a traditional ladder.”

She also said that balancing player needs was considered.

“Whilst I recognise that players would like to play longer, and some sections of the fan base would like (the season) to go longer as well, we also need to recognise that at the moment, they’re part-time athletes.

Gold medal-winning rugby sevens player Chloe Dalton is playing VFLW for the Blues this season with an eye to AFLW 2019. Picture: David Caird

“The feedback we get back through the AFLPA and the players themselves is they’re also struggling with things like leave at work, managing time off and the period of the competition,” she said.

“A lot of players spoke to me at the end of the eight-week season saying they were absolutely exhausted. We do need to also have a product that’s viable and sustainable and have something to move up to in the future.”

The seven rounds will be four games against conference opponents and then three crossover games versus teams from the opposing conference, which will be decided using a weighting rule.