Last night I attended the Women's ambassador event at Barkers Cafe. When the AFL Women's started 3 seasons ago, I decided to support the club and the women's football team and decided to become a foundation member. I haven't attended any of the events from previous seasons, but decided to last night.

It was poorly attended compared to the previous two (according to a couple of people there). We heard from Ameet Bains, the coach and his assistants as well as a player panel. With very few people attending, there was a good opportunity to talk to them in the breaks. We also had a tour of the brand new changing rooms and chill out areas for the women. The Bulldog museum has been taken out and moved around a bit into the Barkers Cafe area and doesn't have a permanent home.

The official opening of the women's area is Friday and I can tell you, the rooms are brilliant and probably the best in Australia for all AFLW teams. Dunkley came along on the tour as well and said the facilities are better than theirs. I said to him this is the only time you get to come in here.

Both Paul Groves and the players think the team to beat this year is Adelaide and not North. The loss on Friday was literally 10 minutes of football in the 2nd quarter when they failed to get their hands on the ball and stop North's momentum, so they are still confident to make the top two in their conference and therefore finals.

I asked Paul why we keep bombing the ball into the forward 50 and not finding a target (sounds familiar), and he agreed it was a concern and blamed the mids not finding a shorter option between the centre and F50 arc, and then having one more kick to find a target. KB will play deeper this week, and they are looking at options for bringing in players to kick goals. We have only kicked 10 goals in 3 games. Paul also said it was difficult to effect a quarter of football when they are only 15 minutes.

Other challenges for the future on AFLW is the new expansion teams coming in (next year Richmond and Saints), and trying to hold on to good players. The constant rules on the run by the AFL also doesn't help and they are making things up as they go along. Paul also thinks the conference system is a test for perhaps bringing in something like that for the men's game. ( I hope not)

Someone asked the players what they thought of the two new rules, ie the quick kicking out after a point is kicked as well as having boundary throw ins from 10 metres further in from the boundary. The players love it and think it has opened up the game. I personally think it is ridiculous and you may as well not have boundary umpires in future and just let the other team kick it in if you are going to change the game so dramatically.

Saturday we play Brisbane in the Grand Final replay and it is a must win game.