GEORGIE PARKER: AFLW season at wrong time of year and mid-week fixtures need to be axed for 2025

1. The timing of the season is wrong for a couple of reasons.

AFL fans are footy fatigued and turning their minds to cricket as the weather heats up.

The clubs also face a tough logistical issue as they manage players who are effectively playing two seasons in a year coming off the winter state league competitions.

Not only does this affect the off season, it affects player development during the AFLW season as well.

Not having a reserves competition for the women either not selected or coming back from injury means there isn’t an opportunity for them to play footy.

Those trying to return to their team can only do so through training or a scrimmage match (if that can either be organised) rather than what happens with the men, who have the opportunity to play a full game of footy in a state league competition.

2. This one has been done to death, so I don’t need to go in to this one too deeply, but the mid-week fixture is good for no one.

Not for the league, not for the players, and not for the fans. The AFL needs to take on this feedback seriously, acknowledge the move was a mistake and give the fixture and each game within it the respect it deserves.

3. The top five teams are awesome to watch with some genuine stars in each team so it’s going to be a really exciting finals series with any of them a chance to lift the cup in three week’s time.

The first round of the finals were not high-scoring affairs, except for Port’s big 72-48 win over Richmond, but a high-scoring match doesn’t necessarily make it a good match, and conversely a low-scoring match doesn’t make it a bad match.

A match can be exciting regardless of the scoreline. Expect well structured, tight and highly contested footy for the rest of the finals series.

4. There are too many teams and this goes for the AFL too. I completely understand the parochialism in the AFL meaning we need all 18 teams represented in the AFLW or we will lose fans, but the talent pool isn’t deep enough and it affects the product.

In saying that, you can’t put the genie back in the bottle, so now there are 18 teams we need to fast track the development.

From Auskick to juniors to state league footy, there needs to be investment to bridge that gap to make sure each match reaches a standard expected by the AFL audience - particularly those ones who think negatively about the women’s game.

This investment needs to be not just in the players themselves, but also coaches from grass roots all the way to the top level.

5. The Irish players lift the league and take it to another level.

Aisling McCarthy is the recruit of the year for me at Fremantle, Aishling Moloney has been an out and out star for Geelong and Sarah Rowe has taken her game to a new level even though Collingwood struggled all season.

I could name an Irish player for every single team who are sitting in the top band of players at their club.

While of course there are Irish men in the AFL, the impact the Irish women have in our game is absolutely enormous, and I’d love that to be rewarded with a very doable (and genuinely losable for us Australians) Irish v Australia series.

And, with the number of Irish players already playing our game, we wouldn’t even need to play international rules, we could just play Aussie rules. How good would that be!