AFLW Tackle: All the likes and dislikes from opening round of the new season

There has been talk about the suitability of big penalties for AFLW players after Tarni White’s three-game ban. ELIZA REILLY thinks a longer season solves the issue.

There has been talk about the suitability of big penalties for AFLW players after Tarni White’s three-game ban. ELIZA REILLY thinks a longer season solves the issue as she presents her likes and dislikes from the opening AFLW round.

LIKES

It was a dream start for the Daisy Pearce era. (Photo by Paul Kane/AFL Photos/via Getty Images)

ALL IN A DAIS WORK

They’re calling it ‘the Daisy effect.’ West Coast has never won more than two games in a season since entering the AFLW. And the Eagles have never won back-to-back games. Well, they’re halfway there on both fronts and it’s only round two. Pearce’s coaching debut drew a record crowd to Mineral Resources Park on the second-leg of the AFLW’s opening night and she ended the evening drenched in Gatorade after her side banked a gritty one-point win. For a side that was involved in five games decided by less than two kicks last season, Richmond looked lost in the final two minutes. West Coast, having trained for tight matches all pre-season, did everything right and forced a go-ahead goal courtesy of Kellie Gibson who crept out the back unguarded. The Tigers were victims of their own inaccuracy and ill-discipline, kicking 3.4 in the final quarter and conceding 3.1 to free kicks in the first half. Pearce has stripped everything back and zeroed in on West Coast’s contest method and attacking with speed. A big opportunity awaits against the banged-up Bombers who will be without co-captain Bonnie Toogood (knee) and Amber Clarke (concussion).

LUCK OF THE IRISH 

How good was it seeing so many Irish players dominate round one of the AFLW? You won’t see too many goals like Eilish O’Dowd’s this season. Not only did the GWS ruck win the initial tap, but she won back possession of the ball, was brave enough to take a bounce and then slotted it on the run all with her first disposal. It was remarkable. A little later on Saturday, Docker Aine Tighe kicked four goals against Essendon. The way the 32-year-old was able to pluck the ball out of the air in challenging conditions at Windy Hill was a sight to behold, especially when she was opposed to two and sometimes even three opponents. Off-season recruit Aisling McCarthy was pretty handy as well in her first game for Fremantle, finishing with 24 disposals, 14 tackles and two goals. Blaithin Mackin (25 disposals and one goal) played one of her best games for Melbourne not to be outdone by Hawks star Aileen Gilroy (16 disposals, two goals). Gaelic football’s loss is the AFLW’s gain. Now imagine what they could do together if the AFL brought back International Rules.

Welcome to the AFLW Eilish O'Dowd 🔥

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OH GOODY 

Shineah Goody was a popular tip for this year’s AFLW Rising Star. And she’s done nothing to disprove that hypothesis so far. The 18-year-old debuted in the Showdown and looked right at home on South Australian football’s biggest stage. Goody polled two votes in the Showdown Medal after finishing with 15 disposals six inside 50s and 423 metres-gained. She also kicked a goal, had four score involvements, four tackles and five intercept possessions in Port’s 14-point loss in front of a capacity crowd at Alberton Oval. But there’s bigger and better things to come. The next day, Port Adelaide announced that Goody had signed a contract extension, tying her to Port until at least the end of 2026. And on Friday night, Goody will get her chance on the MCG after the Power’s clash with the Western Bulldogs was relocated to the home of football. It’s been a fair week for the prodigious talent and she’s just getting started.

DISLIKES

 TRIBUNAL TRIBULATION 

Regardless of what you thought about Tarni White’s bump on Maddy Collier and whether it deserved three weeks, there’s been some interesting discourse emerge in the aftermath about the suitability of big penalties for AFLW players. Collier, in her first game since recovering from an ACL injury, was flattened by White after disposing of the ball in the third quarter and missed the remainder of the game with concussion. Collingwood failed to overturn White’s three-match ban at the tribunal and she will now miss more than a quarter of the 11-game season. A three-week suspension is essentially equivalent to six in the AFL given the shorter season length and it’s had some questioning whether bans, like fines, should be scalable in the AFLW. The grading system is the exact same between the men’s and women’s competitions.

Maddy Collier of the Swans after being bumped by Tarni White. (Photo by Brendon Thorne/AFL Photos/via Getty Images)

White’s bump was graded careless conduct, severe impact and high contact and therefore received the same penalty as Kysaiah Pickett’s collision with Darcy Moore in round 24. Using the scaling logic, if Collier misses one game with concussion, that’s equivalent to two in the AFL or four if she misses the next fortnight, point being that a shorter season doesn’t lessen the severity of concussions. There’s also the added complexity of a compressed fixture this season, meaning players could be automatically ruled out for two games if they both fall within the 12-day concussion protocol. Would it feel right if an AFLW player lays a Jimmy Webster style hit and only gets three weeks? It’s a valid argument that AFLW bans are disproportionate but scaling would make an already perplexing MRO system even more confusing. This is why we need a longer season.

FIXTURE OVERLAP 

There’s a fair bit of footy being played this weekend isn’t there? The AFL has been dealt the difficult task of fixturing nine AFLW games and four AFL finals on the same weekend and as a result, we’ve got an MCG double-header on Friday, three games on Saturday and five on Sunday. After the excitement of round one’s spaced out fixture, six of the nine games in round two will overlap. West Coast vs. Essendon and Collingwood vs. Hawthorn both bounce down at the same time on Saturday and the same can be said for Richmond vs. GWS and Gold Coast vs. Carlton and North Melbourne vs. Geelong and St Kilda vs. Sydney on Sunday. It’s a nightmare for fans desperate to consume the AFLW. Super Sunday away from the AFL finals spotlight will afford the girls clean air. But was there an opportunity to push the Fremantle vs. Adelaide game back by two hours to a twilight timeslot that suits an eastern states audience and then space the other four games out from there? Luckily this weekend is the exception, not the norm.

Tayla Harris is set to go under the knife. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

HARRIS’ PARIS STINT UNDER FURTHER OBSERVATION

The optics of Tayla Harris in Paris are looking worse by the day after the Melbourne star was ruled out for the season with a shoulder injury that requires surgery.

Harris dealt with similar issues in the lead up to Melbourne’s 2024 campaign, dislocating the same left shoulder during a pre-season camp. But the 27-year-old was able to complete an extensive contact training block to prove her fitness ahead of round one.

Regardless, this costly setback clouds Harris’ pre-season trip to the Olympics. It’s important to note that her shoulder dislocation is obviously a contact injury, not soft tissue like the quad concern she picked up after a long-haul flight back to Melbourne.

It didn’t look like Harris was at 100 per cent against Geelong even before the first of two incidents which tested her shoulder.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing and with the premiership Demon now out for the year, we have to consider whether she was physically ready to play in round one and if that time spent abroad impacted her preparation. And that includes pointing the finger at a fleeting Euro summer, regardless of what she gained from it.

Originally published as AFLW Tackle: All the likes and dislikes from opening round of the new season