AFLW West Coast Womens 2025

[UseR2006]

 

[AlphaSheep]

She does but 100% managed and will disappear with maturity. It’s a juvenile condition.

Russo is exceptional trainer, high work ethic and no nonsense footballer. Hard at it 100% of the time.

100000 times better than Britton, Bushby, Western.

An extremely skilled offence force we have got this evening.

So very happy for her, training tonight was a buzz after her name was called out

Great night

Those three are going to need to improve a lot to get games next season. Russo, Slocombe, Patterson, Skepper, then Rowley getting back from injury. Looks like we identified those positions as our weakspot and just blasted it with every pick we could get.

Weird draft though - Baker-West, McMillan and Russo were the three most highly rated ball winning mids in the draft, outside of Bown, and all slipped a LONG way. Even Bown slipped a little. I guess it just shows how much the W is prioritising speed these days.

I understand the logic, but you can always take it too far - by this logic Jas Garner and Eb Marinof would only get picked in the 20s if they were kids today.

 

[Biggie]

I’d literally never heard of juvenile arthritis before today. The stuff you learn following footy, hey?

Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis

 

[Avalor]

Both of these new recruits in Russo and Skewer-Clinton are versions of Painter, it seems. Will give a tough physical contest all day long.

 

[squashface]

Russo's highlights look absolutely unreal. Pick 20 seems like a massive steal.

 

[Monocle]

There is a little bit of Ellie Blackburn about the way Mia Russo ply's her craft.

What she and JSC, have in common is that they are both very physically strong players that are hard at the contested and are difficult to knock off the ball.

We have bought in some grunt to the side with out compromising on either speed or skill.

I can see both these acquisitions complimenting the skillsets of the others currently on our list.

I would have liked some defensive run and carry, to counterattack out of the backline, but that will have to wait for future trade and draft periods.

Our list is developing nicely and I can see some genuine and exciting competition for spots in the team becoming a real factor, that will internally help improve the sides performances and accelerate our trajectory up the ladder.


Overall I am pretty happy with who we have traded and drafted in over the last month, I'm really looking forward to next season as I am anticipating an incremental improvement from this young playing group that we have assembled.

Bring it on - cant wait.

 

[AlphaSheep]

Russo's highlights look absolutely unreal. Pick 20 seems like a massive steal.

If the draft were functioning properly, she's top 10. Has as good a chance as anyone of becoming one of the great AFLW mids. Total steal.

 

[Byron_Clanger]

High tea with the captain and the GOAT

 

[Byron_Clanger]

If the draft were functioning properly, she's top 10. Has as good a chance as anyone of becoming one of the great AFLW mids. Total steal.

Also noticed our last three top picks were all captains with leadership galore. Rentsch was the GWV captain, Painter was Bendigo co-captain and Russo was WA and AFL Academy co-captain. If the team weren't so young normally you'd say these girls could be potential captains in 5 years but Bella and Chuck will still only be 27/8 then

 

[Byron_Clanger]

JSC in all her blue and yellow glory

 

[FatPizza]

JSC in all her blue and yellow glory

Gold.

 

[jatz14]

Good draft and trade period. However, realistically I don't think this alone closes the gap much, lots of clubs got good results from this period, some clubs, for whatever reason, were totally blessed.

Where we start to close the gap hopefully, is the continued growth of a very young list, and the further development and embedding of the game plan.

The other thing I think that is making the biggest difference, both for us, and for the league as a whole is, is how much better the worst player on the list is, than a few years ago. This makes the product look better, and gives greater flexibility and durability to lists.

More competition for spots. If you do get an injury run., your ability to get through it is so much better when the replacements look like they a least belong in an AFLW game.

 

[Barrybran]

JSC in all her blue and yellow glory

She's got her old man convered for height

 

[Barrybran]

Good draft and trade period. However, realistically I don't think this alone closes the gap much, lots of clubs got good results from this period, some clubs, for whatever reason, were totally blessed.

Where we start to close the gap hopefully, is the continued growth of a very young list, and the further development and embedding of the game plan.

The other thing I think that is making the biggest difference, both for us, and for the league as a whole is, is how much better the worst player on the list is, than a few years ago. This makes the product look better, and gives greater flexibility and durability to lists.

More competition for spots. If you do get an injury run., your ability to get through it is so much better when the replacements look like they a least belong in an AFLW game.

Two additional actual footballers on the ground will be huge

 

[WCE777]

Good draft and trade period. However, realistically I don't think this alone closes the gap much, lots of clubs got good results from this period, some clubs, for whatever reason, were totally blessed.

Where we start to close the gap hopefully, is the continued growth of a very young list, and the further development and embedding of the game plan.

The other thing I think that is making the biggest difference, both for us, and for the league as a whole is, is how much better the worst player on the list is, than a few years ago. This makes the product look better, and gives greater flexibility and durability to lists.

More competition for spots. If you do get an injury run., your ability to get through it is so much better when the replacements look like they a least belong in an AFLW game.

Tend to agree that our rise will come from within mostly.

What we have done is improve the bottom of our list dramatically with all the trade and draft players.
The players are increasingly better year on year and this lifts the competition as a whole, this also means we must lift with it.

The game plan being embedded more, the growth of our young list and the injection of all the trades and draftees will lift us collectively.

We will miss a couple of players through injury but we have basically had 2 players non competing for most of 2025 in Drennan for half a year, Hosking MIA and McDonald missing all 2025, this will improve us dramatically having an extra 3 players on our list instead of injury replacement players.

 

[Byron_Clanger]

Good draft and trade period. However, realistically I don't think this alone closes the gap much, lots of clubs got good results from this period, some clubs, for whatever reason, were totally blessed.

Where we start to close the gap hopefully, is the continued growth of a very young list, and the further development and embedding of the game plan.

The other thing I think that is making the biggest difference, both for us, and for the league as a whole is, is how much better the worst player on the list is, than a few years ago. This makes the product look better, and gives greater flexibility and durability to lists.

More competition for spots. If you do get an injury run., your ability to get through it is so much better when the replacements look like they a least belong in an AFLW game.

We were at least two years ahead of schedule this year, no shot anyone had us playing a final. Unfortunately for us the league's gonna give us an ass busting fixture for next year as well as teams around us getting better through trades during the trade period, such a shame we couldn't grab Zanker or the Number 1 pick.

Has the makings of one of those 'back down to earth' kind of years next season if the games against Melbourne, Adelaide and the Carlton final are anything to go by.

 

[Byron_Clanger]

This would be a read. I'm still interested in what the hell happened to her here. Not the salacious rumor side, the side of Hosking going from sending Painter and Riggs 'welcome to the club' comments on IG to then getting excommunicated from the club a month or two later.

 

[WCE777]

There is a little bit of Ellie Blackburn about the way Mia Russo ply's her craft.

What she and JSC, have in common is that they are both very physically strong players that are hard at the contested and are difficult to knock off the ball.

We have bought in some grunt to the side with out compromising on either speed or skill.

I can see both these acquisitions complimenting the skillsets of the others currently on our list.

I would have liked some defensive run and carry, to counterattack out of the backline, but that will have to wait for future trade and draft periods.

Our list is developing nicely and I can see some genuine and exciting competition for spots in the team becoming a real factor, that will internally help improve the sides performances and accelerate our trajectory up the ladder.


Overall I am pretty happy with who we have traded and drafted in over the last month, I'm really looking forward to next season as I am anticipating an incremental improvement from this young playing group that we have assembled.

Bring it on - cant wait.

High praise indeed, if we get Ellie Blackburn from Mia Russo we get a top 10 midfielder in the competition and a huge steal at 20/really 12?

 

[Monocle]

Good draft and trade period. However, realistically I don't think this alone closes the gap much, lots of clubs got good results from this period, some clubs, for whatever reason, were totally blessed.

Where we start to close the gap hopefully, is the continued growth of a very young list, and the further development and embedding of the game plan.

The other thing I think that is making the biggest difference, both for us, and for the league as a whole is, is how much better the worst player on the list is, than a few years ago. This makes the product look better, and gives greater flexibility and durability to lists.

More competition for spots. If you do get an injury run., your ability to get through it is so much better when the replacements look like they a least belong in an AFLW game.

Good post and I agree with your comments.
We did well and improved our list BUT, so did pretty well every other Club.

Our improvement will need to come organically with our players becoming more experienced with more games and their belt and the team synergy developing.
This is what will be needed to close the gap, between us and the contenders.

What we do now have is a very solid core of quality young players that will come through together for the next 5-6 seasons.

We will at some stage need to trade in some A quality missing pieces to complete the list build and accelerate our advancement up the ladder.
With a young and improving list, fortunately it becomes easier to lure and poach quality player to your Club.

The only criticism I have of our draft and trade period is that we did nothing to address the shortfall we have of players that can drive us with speed / run and carry out of defense.

That said I appreciate that it’s not always possible to achieve all your goals in one trade and draft period.

Will be a very interesting and entertaining watch to see the girls now jostling and competing for spots in the team.

Some of the past regulars will now have to fight tooth and nail, to both win and then hold their spots in the team and remain on the list in 12 months time.

 

[Monocle]

High praise indeed, if we get Ellie Blackburn from Mia Russo we get a top 10 midfielder in the competition and a huge steal at 20/really 12?

I’m always reluctant to post “plays like” in style comments as they get interpreted as will be as good as, rather than what the comment was intended to convey, that being that she plays with a similar style.

Better tone it down and say that she reminds me of “ Blackburn Lite”.

 

[HoneyBadger35]

As many have said, our floor as improved but so has everyone around/above us, and the harder fixture will likely see us plateau.

However, the room for growth all across the list and the addition of some complementary midfield pieces has me excited. What we should be looking for is how early and easily do they dispatch teams far below our tier, can we continue to get a few scalps of those around us, and whatever happens with the top end of the league happens.

Last year was ahead of schedule in a big way, this feels like a set up the new baseline and use it to build into something special over the coming years type season.

 

[Ilkka Sinisalo]

I’ll take an early shot at our best 21, not including the long-term injuries who will clearly not be available opening round.

B: Schilling, Z Wakfer
HB: Thomas, Smith, Cleaver
C: Rentsch, Lewis, Britton
HF: Dalgleish, Riggs, Skepper
F: L Wakfer, Gibson
Foll: McGrath, Roberts, Painter
Int: Bushby, Slocombe, Swanson, Russo, Roux

Extra: Franklin, Paterson, Bakker, McDonald, Lakay, Skewes-Clinton, Drennan (???), injury replacement(s) (probably Lindgren)

Feels to me like a lot more depth in the midfield and competition for roles there. Given how little competitive football some of the girls have played it would be nice if the likes of McDonald, Slocombe, Paterson, and maybe Schilling could do some time in the WAFLW. I guess there’s an outside shot of Rowley making it back but I suspect they’ll put a line through her and Western and go for a couple of injury replacements in the pre-season draft, one of which presumably is Lindgren given that she’s still training at the club.

 

[Byron_Clanger]

This would be a read. I'm still interested in what the hell happened to her here. Not the salacious rumor side, the side of Hosking going from sending Painter and Riggs 'welcome to the club' comments on IG to then getting excommunicated from the club a month or two later.

https://archive.md/DJCAh

Broke the paywall.

'My body was cooked' But was more than happy to sign an extension and the club medicos had no problem? While you were hosting drinking and golfing days in the offseason? Well ok.

 

[AlphaSheep]

Our greatest advantage is that we're currently the best team in the comp IF you look at current level + age/experience. And it looks like the coaches all know it, and are playing into it deliberately - rather than spreading out the age profile like is usually done, they're concentrating on similarly aged players who will all get better at the same time.

The risk is that we'll fall off a cliff when they all get too old at the same time in ten years, but if we win premierships in between, who cares. The AFLW talent base is rapidly improving and expanding, so why not ride the wave? We've seen clubs with seven or eight kids all making big leaps at the same time - we might have 15.

This draft addressed our biggest problem from last season - not enough good ball users, lack of midfield depth. We're not picking winners, not throwing all our cash on a couple of players and crossing our fingers. We're getting lots of promising young players, and seeing how they go. Statistically we don't need all of them to be great, just enough of them. And if our ratio of hits to misses is high enough, we'll have turned our smaller investments into greater value than if we'd blown it all on a Zanker or a Prowse.

 

[UseR2006]