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Pearce angered by AFL's 'gimmicky tournament' treatment of AFLW
Melbourne AFLW champion Daisy Pearce has slammed the AFL’s proposed plans for the 2019 women’s season, labelling it as a “gimmicky tournament”.
Despite the AFLW expanding to 10 teams, with the introduction of Geelong and North Melbourne, the league has reportedly decided to keep it as an eight-week season with two weeks of finals, by splitting the comp into two five-team conferences, meaning most teams will play one less home-and-away game than they did in the first two years.
Pearce told SEN on Friday that it was contradictory for the AFL to bring in two new women’s teams but still view the competition as not growing fast enough to warrant an expanded nine-game regular season with finals.
The Demons captain also said the AFL should “get the women’s game right” first before devoting so much money, time and energy to AFLX.
“It doesn’t sit well with me or a lot of the players is the temperature that I’m taking,” Pearce said.
“I get that there’s a commercial reality that they want to keep this competition within the little free eight-week timeslot where there is no sport, that was the reason for it in the first two years while it was in its infancy and getting going.
“But I thought when those two new teams came in I was rubbing my hands together thinking we’re going to get a legitimate competition here, play everyone once and head into a finals series - you beauty.
“But it seems not to be the case and the reason it annoys me is that this is presented as the female elite professional offering by the AFL and it has been lauded as that – finally there’s an elite women’s competition.
“But with the AFL presenting it as that, it comes with a level of expectation that everyone within the sport, us players and coaches, we wear that expectation that this is going to be a professional elite competition when in reality this is a gimmicky tournament.
“They would argue that it’s not that but that’s the perception that it gives that it enables them to tick the box that, yes we offer an elite competition to our women.”
Speaking on 3AW on Friday morning, AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan defended the league, saying there was ''no bigger priority'' than the AFLW.
He said the window for the AFLW after the Australian Open remained their preference as it was ''clean air'' in the sporting landscape, and that no decision had been made on the format of the season and the number of games.
"The World Cup goes for four weeks, you wouldn’t call that a Mickey Mouse tournament," McLachlan said.
"It's balancing all of those issues up. In an ideal world, everyone would play each other once. I understand that, but I've outlined as clearly as I can all the things that everyone is working through to try and get to the right outcome."
“We’re making decisions with a 30-year view, not in year three. There is no bigger priority for us in AFL head office than AFLW and women’s football.”
Among those to express their anger on social media was former Adelaide premiership coach Bec Goddard, Melbourne's Lily Mithen and Aliesha Newman, and Collingwood's Georgie Parker.
"Wait, 6 games only? No, it has to be a typo. Someone dropped off the 1. 16 games including finals. Surely we can find an extra couple of games from somewhere? There is still enough pizza for everyone. Including extra cheese on some," Goddard said.
Magpie Parker, also an Olympic gold medallist in hockey, said: "I love moving across the country for months, leaving my family behind to play a 6 week season When the pre season is twice as long as the actual season, something is wrong! Don’t bring new teams in if you can’t accommodate for them!! @AFL #pissed."
She added: "Start earlier. Trust the brand will stand up to the aus open, or play time slots that complement the tennis matches rather than compete with it. The year after there are another 4 teams coming in... what are we gonna do then..? Play 6 games again?"
Pearce said splitting the competition into two conferences could turn out to be a disaster.
“How do you evenly split those two conferences given that if you take the first two seasons for example when you’ve got no real form lines, different development trajectories, huge amounts of player movements off the back of each season?” Pearce said.
“The Bulldogs finished last in the first season and won the flag in the second season ... you could split those five-team conferences off the back of last season and end up with all the best teams in one conference and [one of] the best teams in that conference might finish fourth and you don’t get a crack at finals.”
Pearce insisted the time has come for the AFL to “bite the bullet” and allow the AFLW season to start overlapping with the AFL season.
“I think it’s strong enough in its own right, it’s still got a lot of development to go, but I think the AFL brand and the rest of the ecosystem that it sits within is strong and established enough to support it in its formative years,” Pearce said.
“And I think at some point you just have to bite the bullet and push it in because for as long as it’s an eight-week competition, it will remain at a level that isn’t elite and professional.
“Players are training off their own back, we’re not contracted at the moment, a lot of people are training so that they can get to the line and be as elite and professional as they can. To say that is an elite comp sets an expectation that we wear and we try and offset by training our guts out for nothing at this time of year.
“We’re signed up as contacted players but they don’t kick in until November to April and outside of that you’re an unpaid, uncontracted player. But you don’t just get to November and flick the switch and say, ‘I’m a professional athlete’.”
