AFLW Season 8 - 2023

[Thryleon]

The way the competition was set up,
The way the expansion was handled,
The lack of history and tradition,
The initial movement of players leading to a lack of bonding,
The less than fully professional nature of the competition,

...all meant that there was always going to be a large number of players changing clubs

We can't look at this competition and think that an AFLW team can mirror its AFL counterpart with over 100 years of history and tradition.
When a young male player comes to Carlton he's surrounded by a group of experienced players. Those players were influenced by a group that came before them and so on... back to formation.
What does the young female player experience...pretty much, so far, a lack of stability and an everchanging player group.
A male player may move for extra money, or opportunity.
A female player may be influenced, and move, because...a friend moves, it's a team she supported as a youngster.

What the competition needs is ...'Time'
Now the teams are sorted, and all in line, expect the movement of players to settle.
As the wages increase, players spend more time together, they bond, they develop a culture and a history, and the competition becomes more professional...the reasons for movements will change.

But don't expect that to happen in a year or two, it will get better, but it's probably a 'next generation' ideal.

Thats my point though Lods.

If you know why players are going, then you can put things in place to prevent that eventuality.  Some of this is purely asking the question.  Groups usually become tight, and then you don't want to leave your mates to play with others.  In Taylah Harris case, she helped pioneer the game through the initial bulldogs and demons matches, that raised the bar so to speak, so that was always going to be a bouncing ball.

What else can we do, to prevent these things from occurring?  Can we put something in place?  From all reports, Harf was doing a decent job, and the ladies were growing in leadership ability on the field.  In 2020, we went to a prelim, which was cancelled due to covid.  In our semi final against Brisbane here is the leadership group:

Coach: Daniel Harford
Captain(s): Kerryn Harrington, Katie Loynes
Leadership Group: Alison Downie, Sarah Hosking, Nicola Stevens

All of them are gone. Is this common?  Are we alone?  In that semi final, we belted Brisbane, 44 to 15, and were going to face off against North Melbourne who narrowly beat Collingwood by 2 points before the match was cancelled.  North's leadership group contained:
Coach: Scott Gowans
Captain: Emma Kearney
Leadership Group:Jasmine Garner, Emma King, Brittany Gibson (delisted at the end of 2022 season). 

They all still appear to be there except the coach has gone to coach Sydney. 

The thing is, the players were already starting to change colours before this.  Breanna Davey left us to become part of the leadership group at Collingwood as an example, and she was a loss on the field, that was capable of being covered but not that well initially.