AFL has shot itself in the foot with AFLW conference system as best teams likely won’t play finals

The AFLW didn’t need a conference system and yet here we are. After the best season the competition has seen by a mile, fans aren’t frustrated at the lack of scoring, they’re frustrated you can score all you want and still not play finals.

Collingwood is struggling big time this AFLW season. Picture: Getty

The AFLW’s best season yet has been ruined by a disastrous conference system. However, it was clear from the start the AFL’s decision to employ this massive change was flawed.

Earlier in the season, Herald Sun reporter Eliza Sewell wrote this article explaining how the AFL had ‘shot itself in the foot’.

IT'S the conference system the AFLW just didn’t need.

The league’s desire to tinker and play with its organically brilliant product has failed.

Conference A is packed with the best sides, while Conference B is streets behind. 

Conference A sides won all nine crossover games played in the first three rounds, the winners doubling the score of the Conference B losers on aggregate.

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The problem for everybody is two sides from Conference B will play in the finals. It didn’t need to be like this.

It’s a problem entirely of the AFL’s making. This is a conference system for 10 clubs. Ten.

Why not one ladder?

The AFL used final ladder positions from last season to determine the conferences, with premiers Western Bulldogs joined by Melbourne (3rd), Adelaide (5th) and Fremantle (7th) from the establishment teams.

Brisbane (2nd), GWS Giants (4th), Collingwood (6th) and Carlton (8th) were the B-teams.

North Melbourne won't play finals in 2019. Picture: Getty

Now, the new clubs. This is where the AFL played against type and decided to leave the allocation of North Melbourne and Geelong to chance.

North recruited magnificently and everyone suspected they would hit the ground running. That they have, and more, so we have the mother of all logjams piling up in Conference A — embarrassingly for the AFL and frustratingly for everyone else.

The AFL got “unlucky” with Fremantle, but even if the purple charge had not materialised it still would have been a super conference.

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Melbourne was arguably the best team in it by the end of last season and Adelaide won the flag in season one and was a likely rebounder.

The Bulldogs, of course, were premiers, but in a two-ladder league, the Dogs are up against it.

Each team plays three matches outside its conference — unfortunately for the Bulldogs the AFL has not given them matches against strugglers Collingwood and GWS.

AFLW boss Nicole Livingstone explained the AFL’s thinking when it unveiled the bells and whistles last year.

“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,” Livingstone said.

Collingwood is struggling big time this AFLW season. Picture: Getty

Also, conferences were a good way to distract from the league’s controversial decision not to increase the number of home-and-away games this season despite the introduction of two new sides.

“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,” Livingstone added.

Clearly, that hasn’t worked.

The conference system is the perfect tool to restrict the number of home-and-away games again next season, too, when four more teams come in.

Like the zone rules that were trialled in the women’s competition last year that have been implemented in the men’s league this season, maybe Gill and co were keen to get us all used to the “American model” of leagues within a league.

But the AFL should be disappointed. It has shot itself in the foot.

It’s been a top-rate season, the best we’ve seen by a mile.

People aren’t frustrated at the lack of scoring, they’re frustrated you can score all you want and still not play finals.

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