Finding more space on the football calendar is the bigger challenge for the AFLW than the conference model
North Melbourne’s elimination from the AFLW finals race with a 5-2 win-loss record has created outrage in the wrong direction on the national women’s league structure, writes Michelangelo Rucci.
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Every World Cup with pools — be it soccer or volleyball — has a “group of death”, a cut-throat division with almost every team seen to be worthy of advancing to the next stage.
So it was with Conference A in the AFLW.
Four of the five teams in this division had winning records — Adelaide (6-1), Fremantle and North Melbourne (5-2) and Melbourne (4-3).
Only two — the Crows and Dockers — advanced from this “group of death”, appropriately after winning pre-final play-offs with the Demons and Kangaroos at the weekend.
But there is outrage that North Melbourne, one of the two new teams with Geelong in AFLW19, misses the finals when Conference B has delivered finalists with poorer win-loss counts: Carlton (4-3) and Geelong (3-4).
There is the argument North Melbourne is more deserving of a finals berth than Conference B leader Carlton because the Kangaroos smashed the Blues 52-16 in the opening round.
In that case, based on a single result, the Western Bulldogs (the last-ranked team in Conference A) would be worthy of a finals berth considering they are the only side to have beaten the Crows this season ... and at Norwood Oval.
The AFLW — with its growing pains — was exposed to this supposed mess when it could not work a league system with 10 teams across seven weeks of home-and-away football along with two weekends of finals.
Just seven qualifying matches with 10 teams would have created a lopsided ladder with a distorted top four.
And there is more expansion next season with four new teams — Gold Coast, Richmond, St Kilda and West Coast.
If the AFLW — by restraints with television and venues — cannot expand beyond a nine-week season, the league format would become even more unsatisfactory. The conference model will be far more practical, even if one conference might appear stronger than another.
For all the dismay in North Melbourne missing the semi-finals, the conferences should still deliver the best two teams to the grand final — provided they prove it on the field this weekend.
Inaugural Crows premiership coach Bec Goddard noted of the conference system as it came under early fire: “I believe that this model isn’t the end of the world, nor does it compromise the integrity of the game.
“Will it stop the league’s best two sides playing off in the grand final? I say no.”
This is the beauty of play-offs — in the same way the AFL last season finished its lopsided home-and-away series with Hawthorn ranked fourth, but the Hawks did not live up to that standing by making a straight-exit collapse in the finals.
There will be those who will smash the AFLW for “following the Americans” with conferences. Yet the AFLW simply went back to Australian football’s past.
Conferences were used to settle the premiership in the VFL-AFL’s second, third and fourth seasons in 1898, 1899 and 1900 — well before the Americans had national competitions for their sports.
Conferences are not the real issue in the AFLW. Dealing with the growing pains, in particular finding more time on the football calendar for the women’s national league is the real problem.
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au
Originally published as Finding more space on the football calendar is the bigger challenge for the AFLW than the conference model
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