‘Infuriating’: GWS Giants star Nicola Barr hits back at Steve Price’s AFLW criticism

GWS Giants star Nicola Barr has hit back at Steve Price after the media commentator slammed the standard of the AFLW competition.

GWS Giants star Nicola Barr has slammed Steve Price’s criticism of the AFLW as “shattering” and infuriating”.

Last week Price took aim at the AFLW in a scathing column, in which he stated high school football players produced a better product.

Price was critical of the low-scoring nature of the contests and said the AFLW isn’t an “elite sport”.

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“Last weekend – in week five of the nine-round AFLW – one team managed a solitary point for the whole game,” Price wrote.

“In many sports, elite women’s competition is every bit as exciting to watch as any men’s equivalent.

“But AFLW is not elite sport and the female version of the Australian game of football is substandard. It is not deserving of the attention and funding it gets.”

Four teams were added to the AFLW in its seventh season so the women’s league now has the full complement of 18 teams like the AFL.

But the expansion has resulted in some lopsided scorelines.

Teams have failed to score a goal on six occasions this season, while just one goal has been kicked by a team in a game 11 times.

Barr, who the No. 1 pick in the AFLW’s inaugural draft and has played every season for the Giants, said Price’s comments about the league’s expansion were shortsighted.

“It’s shattering and disappointing, it’s just infuriating is probably the right word to read articles like that,” she told the The Only Sports Show.

“I’m in the competition, I know the competition is quite uneven at the moment.

“But the only way for us to get better, to grow as footballers and continue and learn to put on a really good performance is to invest in the game.

Nicola Barr defended the AFLW’s expansion. Photo by Phil Hillyard.

Steve Price criticised the standard of the AFLW. Picture: Channel 10

“The AFL knows that the only way for us to get better is to continue growing the game and that is by putting potentially more games on, increasing our pay, increasing the number of professional teams.”

Barr said the AFLW has quickly expanded to 18 teams to provide more pathways for young players to take up Aussie Rules in what is an increasingly competitive market for women’s sport.

“And we can see the flow on effect of all of this and what it’s having on younger generations is massive,” she added.

“There are so many young girls playing AFLW now that weren’t before and that’s because they can see that there is a pathway for them and there’s a level for them to play at in professional teams.

“We can see that flow on effect and the development of AFLW is going to take a long time … we’ve seen it with women’s cricket and the level that they’re playing at now because of the investment that’s been put in.

“The AFLW is going to get better and better every year. The flow on effect to younger girls and having more younger girls playing the sport means there’s more investment in the game and that builds long-term.”

The AFL has expanded quickly. (Photo by Morgan Hancock/Getty Images)

Price doubled down on his criticms on The Project on Sunday in a testy exchange as co-host Peter Helliar called him out for not liking women playing physical sport.

Waleed Aly: “Do you just not like women’s footy. Do you not like the NRL either which is good quality.”

Price: “I don’t think it is good enough to get the media exposure it gets.”

Helliar: “I suspect you don’t like women playing physical sport is that true?”

Price: “Did you read the column? I gave about seven examples of great female sport, golf, racing..”

Helliar: “Not physical crash and bash sports.”

Price: “Netball, basketball, I gave all those examples in that column. I don’t have a problem with women’s sport, women’s sport is fantastic, AFLW isn’t.”

Helliar: “Punching down to this industry that is five years in. We have had this debate for a while but to see it in print, to use this megaphone that you have to bash a league.”

Price: “I’m not doing anything. I’m simply saying it is not good quality. How can one game with one point scored be good quality.”

Price’s comments sparked intense debate, with AFLW fans taking aim at the radio presenter on social media, while other Australians have backed his piece and the reasoning behind it.

Originally published as ‘Infuriating’: GWS Giants star Nicola Barr hits back at Steve Price’s AFLW criticism