Recruiting AFLW Draft, Trade & Sign - 25 players re-signed, list is full, won't be drafting anyone!

[Lore]

Spoiler: 2023 Interim Draft

Spoiler: 2024 Draft (Future Pick Tracker)

2023 Essendon List

 

[RedmanWasHere]

Not sure if there's one already created (by me or someone else) (if there is please delete this one) but it's time to discuss the make-up of the inaugural squad.

Presumably the club will be tapping into the Calder Cannons squad and going from there.

2022 is the next important year in Essendon's club history.
2023 is when the club unveils its first ever AFLW line-up.

There should be a mix of players from other clubs and freshly drafted talent.

Let's go.

 

[Lore]

There wasn't a thread yet because the trade period isn't until June and the draft is in July, and we won't know what our list build concessions will be like until closer to the date.

Also we can do all the recruiting and list management stuff in one thread for now. If it gets popular enough to warrant splitting into two threads then we can do that down the track or in a few years, etc.

I reckon PMBangers and Pie 4 Life might be able to name some names for us though.

 

[PMBangers]

There wasn't a thread yet because the trade period isn't until June and the draft is in July, and we won't know what our list build concessions will be like until closer to the date.

Also we can do all the recruiting and list management stuff in one thread for now. If it gets popular enough to warrant splitting into two threads then we can do that down the track or in a few years, etc.

I reckon PMBangers and Pie 4 Life might be able to name some names for us though.

Oh the names to track.... my stars!

We don't really know much about how the new clubs will be introduced re: prelisting of underaged girls, I know St Kilda got to sign 2 or 3 girls that were draft eligible prior to their inclusion from Dandenong Stingrays, so maybe Essendon will get a similar start with the Calder Cannons? The 3 to look out for in that case are Abbey McDonald who was part of the U19s Metro squad this year, good ball use and plays as a utility in the truest sense, has played games where she's run through the midfield, backline and forwardline all in one (check out a great goal from her in one of the U17s matches below)



Reese Sutton and Tahlia Read who are both mid-forwards, Tahlia is pretty powerful as a burst runner from memory so will be exciting around stoppages if picked up.

 

[RedmanWasHere]

There wasn't a thread yet because the trade period isn't until June and the draft is in July, and we won't know what our list build concessions will be like until closer to the date.

Also we can do all the recruiting and list management stuff in one thread for now. If it gets popular enough to warrant splitting into two threads then we can do that down the track or in a few years, etc.

I reckon PMBangers and Pie 4 Life might be able to name some names for us though.

I'm down for that.

 

[eth-dog]

I think Ruby Svarc is a really good chance at coming back if she struggles to get a game at Brisbane again. How do they work out the draft order with new sides?

 

[Lore]

AFLW Latest News - AFL.com.au/aflw

Latest breaking AFLW news from the official website of the Australian Football League.

www.womens.afl

THE FOUR expansion clubs will be able to sign up to 14 current AFLW players in a special 'expansion signing period', in proposed rules released by the AFL on Monday.

Essendon, Hawthorn, Port Adelaide and Sydney will join the NAB AFLW competition ahead of the 2022-23 season, rounding out all 18 clubs.

The AFL hasn’t yet confirmed rules around the number of players per existing club who can move to new clubs.

Last expansion round, Brisbane and Fremantle could lose up to eight players, given Gold Coast and West Coast were entering the competition, with other teams losing up to four.

The new clubs can also acquire players through the following methods:

• Open-age signings: players who have previously nominated for the NAB AFLW Draft and aren’t on a list
• Under-18 talent from their NGA region. There will be a limit on this category, which is yet to be determined
• Sign and trade period: following the expansion signing period. Expansion clubs cannot on-trade players they have signed through other mechanisms
• NAB AFLW Draft

The expansion clubs will receive the first eight picks of the state-based draft, with the order to be determined at random.

They will then receive remaining picks at the end of each round, following the existing 14 clubs.

A number of Essendon and Hawthorn VFLW players nominated for the 2021 draft, making them eligible for signing as an open-age player.

Bombers VFLW skipper and competition best and fairest Georgia Nanscawen opted not to nominate for the 2021 draft, but should be eligible as an open-age signing as she has previously gone through the drafting process.

The AFL has said final list build rules will be determined in 2022.

So we should be able to sign any of our VFLW players who nominated in 2021 or before, sign some existing AFLW players from other clubs, plus two picks in the first 8 and a bunch of later picks.

 

[faible]

AFLW Latest News - AFL.com.au/aflw

Latest breaking AFLW news from the official website of the Australian Football League.

www.womens.afl

So we should be able to sign any of our VFLW players who nominated in 2021 or before, sign some existing AFLW players from other clubs, plus two picks in the first 8 and a bunch of later picks.

Are we the AFLW version of GWS?

 

[Lore]

Are we the AFLW version of GWS?

Nah, Norf

 

[Lore]

 

[Lore]

Sarah Ford (one of our VFLW midfielders) has been signed to Sydney's AFLW team

Also Wood did an interview with the Women's Footy Show (Channel 9), among other things she was talking about building our AFLW list and valuing a diversity of experiences among the playing and coaching groups.

Wood has a key focus on diversity, not just through gender and experience, but also ensuring the program has people who think and communicate differently to bring the best out in the players.

“Diversity is really important. Diversity of gender gets spoken about but also diversity of experiences, the way we think and the natural ways we like to communicate and teach our players,” Wood said.

“I really want to make sure we get a coaching group that complements our players but is also willing to challenge each other and have some really robust conversations because we need to get the best out of our coaching group and staff to put the best program in place for the players.”

...

When establishing the Bombers’ AFLW list, Wood hopes to use a combination of VFLW players with new additions.

“In terms of how many and who, that’s something with [AFLW contract manager] Georgia Harvey and our list management team will need to look at,” Wood said.

“Obviously there’s different rules we need to look at and how we can get different players so we’re making sure we are using players that have grown through Essendon but also getting other players that really complement our list as well.”

Diversity key to Wood's AFLW build

New Essendon AFLW coach Natalie Wood outlines her approach to establishing the program.

www.essendonfc.com.au

 

[Lore]

Club probably wants to drip feed announcements in the lead up to the season, I'd rather hear we're getting it done. I hope we're getting it done.

Sydney has signed 8, and is chasing some established players quite hard. Hawthorn have 3, we have Nanscawen.

Port don’t even have a coach and no players, though I assume they’ll announce Erin Phillips as soon as Adelaide is out of finals. Perhaps their coach is still at another club too..

 

[Lore]

I can handle drip feeding as long as the ball is rolling. Nanscawen was announced 11/3 and Wood was 23/3… we’re due for more news hah.

 

[yodellinhank]

Are we the AFLW version of GWS?

Clear as mud. Typical AFL lack of detail so they can make it up as they go along?

Also how they're determining who gets to pick first out of the expansion clubs. Will the random order repeat through the draft or rotate?

I'd love to know who's eligible off our VFL list and who we'd have to draft.

 

[Lore]

Clear as mud. Typical AFL lack of detail so they can make it up as they go along?

Also how they're determining who gets to pick first out of the expansion clubs. Will the random order repeat through the draft or rotate?

I'd love to know who's eligible off our VFL list and who we'd have to draft.

Pretty much our entire VFLW list is available as open age signings because they are former AFLW players or have been through the draft before. I thought I saw a list of draft nominations from 2021 somewhere but I can’t find it now, I did look them all up though and the only one missing was Nanscawen when I checked.

The ones who are turning 18 this year are from the three U18 clubs in our NGA region, which we can also sign directly.

Those two sources are going to be capped but we don’t know how many of each we are allowed yet…

Then there’s the draft, which should be snaked; 1234, 4321. We kind of know what picks we’ll have, two at the start of the draft and one at the end of every round, but not the precise numbers yet (look in the national draft/Vic tabs):

Resource - 2022 AFLW Draft Order

Every trade as it happens!

www.bigfooty.com

And also signing players from other clubs, which will have caps of some sort so no club loses too many players without compensation.

We don’t know the cap for that yet either though.

 

[yodellinhank]

Bring them in!

 

[84859300]

Sydney has signed 8, and is chasing some established players quite hard. Hawthorn have 3, we have Nanscawen.

Port don’t even have a coach and no players, though I assume they’ll announce Erin Phillips as soon as Adelaide is out of finals. Perhaps their coach is still at another club too..

I have a contact at an AFLW club who advised Sydney were always going to go hard. They have the cash and a bit of a jump on signings, as Hawthorn publicised that they weren't going to look at any signings before the end of the VFLW season. This let clubs like Sydney swoop in. Hawthorn are scrambling to secure their talent as of now. Unless Essendon's girls are well managed, I'd be sure that there has been a few that have been approaached also. Sydney are offering 3 year contracts off the bat, so hard to knock back if you're semi pro on $60K per year.

It's 95% passed that the new AFLW seson will begin again in August 2022 - so between VFLW finishing, there will be a 2 week break and all clubs will return back for pre-season. With more 'mouths to feed' in the AFLW, the top talent will thin out some more. Add to that where most clubs will utilise their VFLW programs as a running seconds; it will get a bit conveluted. The VFLW and AFLW girls are on different contracts. So if there are injuries and the need to jump up a level new contracts will ahve to be made for part seasons. As of now, the VFLW/AFLW clubs are already sending some players back to VFLW level to play for their careers.

Finally, add to the card that with a change of season brings; many of the grass root clubs that were expecting their talent back at local level will no longer see their stars. This will hurt development at grassroots, as the AFL peacemeal a comp together to suit their needs.

 

[Lore]

I have a contact at an AFLW club who advised Sydney were always going to go hard. They have the cash and a bit of a jump on signings, as Hawthorn publicised that they weren't going to look at any signings before the end of the VFLW season. This let clubs like Sydney swoop in. Hawthorn are scrambling to secure their talent as of now. Unless Essendon's girls are well managed, I'd be sure that there has been a few that have been approaached also. Sydney are offering 3 year contracts off the bat, so hard to knock back if you're semi pro on $60K per year.

It's 95% passed that the new AFLW seson will begin again in August 2022 - so between VFLW finishing, there will be a 2 week break and all clubs will return back for pre-season. With more 'mouths to feed' in the AFLW, the top talent will thin out some more. Add to that where most clubs will utilise their VFLW programs as a running seconds; it will get a bit conveluted. The VFLW and AFLW girls are on different contracts. So if there are injuries and the need to jump up a level new contracts will ahve to be made for part seasons. As of now, the VFLW/AFLW clubs are already sending some players back to VFLW level to play for their careers.

Finally, add to the card that with a change of season brings; many of the grass root clubs that were expecting their talent back at local level will no longer see their stars. This will hurt development at grassroots, as the AFL peacemeal a comp together to suit their needs.

I think ours are well-managed. We seem to have a list full of AFLW hopefuls, some of them have moved interstate or internationally to play for our VFLW team, which up until 10 months ago didn't have AFLW alignment, a confirmed license, or an entry date.

The culture and build up around the VFLW team over the last five years has been all about setting ourselves up to transfer significant parts of the program into the AFLW, making sure we had the facilities, putting in an organisational structure to support the program. It seems very goal-oriented and well-resourced as a whole. They even committed to a full AFLW style pre-season at the end of last year, with an extra training session each week compared to a normal VFLW program.

There's also a vibe through the group of wanting to play for Essendon, not just wanting to play AFLW - to the point Nanscawen didn't even nominate for the draft last year. That's a big statement for a captain and reigning league BnF winner I think. We have a fairly solid core group that have carried through for 3-4 years, some even inaugural players who are starting to hit 50 club games milestones (which the club overall has only been involved in about 52 games). It feels like a club you want to belong to and be a part of, rather than a team to play with for a while.


Sydney are in a bit of a different position, as they don't have an equivalent reserves team that they've been somewhat aggressively building up for five years. Instead they have their academy and then a summer series thing with 'reds' and 'whites' playing against GWS's 'orange' and 'charcoal' teams in a round robin format, most of which is I think made up of predominantly 18 year old draft hopefuls. If they want mature aged players to play for them then they have to be pretty aggressive to get them out of the systems they're embedded in and moving interstate.

It's actually an interesting sort of gendered thing, as women tend to get into long term relationships and have kids younger than men do, so will spend more of their career with more family responsibilities tying them to a particular part of the country at a younger age than an AFL player usually would. Women also tend to be a secondary income earner in the family, which as a part-time league an AFLW contract isn't necessarily going to be more lucrative than their partner's day job. It's quite a different decision to uproot everything and move across the country under those circumstances, so Sydney will be fighting an uphill battle unless they're targeting younger players or those who are originally from Sydney (Ford, Collier, Mitchell are all from there).

 

[yodellinhank]

Our VFL group definitely seem tight. Winners are grinners I suppose. Should make it easier for the club to get things moving...

 

[Lore]

Was looking for something else and found this Footyology article from last year quoting Nanscawen about an AFLW list build:

She guided a youthful Dons outfit to its first finals campaign this year and eagle-eyed AFLW recruiters were quick to pounce on the bounty of Bomber talent. Six of Nanscawen’s teammates were picked up in July’s AFLW draft, including No.2 selection Georgie Prespakis – an inside midfielder whose sister Madison won 2020’s AFLW best-and-fairest award – as well as her future Geelong teammate, and seventh pick, Zali Friswell.

Nanscawen, an in-and-under tough nut herself, describes list building as “one of the toughest things” to do in the women’s game. Essendon’s strategy has long been to develop would-be wunderkinds in association with the Calder Cannons and Bendigo Pioneers, but not for themselves.

As these Bomber prospects ripened, they were promptly plucked by clubs with an AFLW side. Danielle Ponter was snapped up by Adelaide in 2018, Lauren Ahrens by Gold Coast and Hayley Bullas by West Coast in 2019, then Ruby Svarc by Brisbane in 2020.

“Essendon has tried to create players to go off, unfortunately, to play for other teams,” Nanscawen said.

“The exciting thing now is that all the girls who are coming through the talent pathway can now go play for Essendon. It’s a bit hard to tell what the list is looking like, but there are certainly a few who have been here from the start; it’d be nice to see a number of those girls getting a go in the AFLW.”

However, Nanscawen knows the reality of converting a VFLW list into one which can hold its own in the cut-and-thrust of AFLW.

“We’re not naïve to think the team’s going to change a lot,” she said.

The most recent expansion team with a VFLW affiliate, St Kilda, brought in just six players from the Southern Saints onto their maiden list of 30.

Nanscawen’s humility, and perhaps her fear of “the mozz”, means she won’t be drawn into any speculation regarding her own future. What she does know, though, is that she won’t be jetting off from Tullamarine any time soon.

“I’ve been pretty upfront with the fact that if I’m going to play AFLW again, I’d love for it to be for Essendon. I can’t really see myself going elsewhere,” she said.

The inside word on the new Essendon AFLW team | Footyology

footyology.com.au

So the Saints took 7 VFLW players into their AFLW team when they expanded. I'd say that's about ballpark for what I'd like to see us do (out of a list of 30, so a quarter).

 

[Lore]

Three of our four 18 year olds on the VFLW development list are in the U18 champs squads for Vic Country and Vic Metro;
Octavia DiDonato (Bendigo)
Reese Sutton (Calder)
Abbey Baillie-McDonald (Calder)

I think only one of our VFLW development listed players who is 18 this year didn't get selected.

There are a few others from Bendigo and Calder who are in the Champs sides too, which are our affiliates;
Lila Keck (Bendigo)
Drew Ryan (Calder)
Emily Everist (Calder)
Teagan Williams (Calder)

Names to look out for I guess!

I think they might come under our NGA zone U18 selections instead of having to draft them, even though they're not playing in our VFLW team? I can't find any exact information on what our NGA zones actually are in the context of AFLW, and whether it's CALD only or what the rules are. It's all a bit murky still. But anyway!

Full squads for VC & VM;

View attachment 1364358View attachment 1364359

AFLW Latest News - AFL.com.au/aflw

Latest breaking AFLW news from the official website of the Australian Football League.

www.womens.afl

Rejigged fixture is as follows;

DATE	MATCH UP	LOCATION
Sun, Mar 20	Vic Country 3.3 (21) lost to Vic Metro 11.8 (74)	Mars Stadium, Ballarat
Sun, Apr 10	South Australia v Western Australia	Thebarton Oval, Adelaide, 10:30am
Sat, Apr 16	Western Australia v WAFLW All Stars	Revo Fitness Stadium, Claremont, 2pm
Sat, Apr 16	South Australia v Vic Country	Adelaide Oval (AFL curtain raiser), 1:10pm
Mon, Apr 18	NSW/ACT v Allies (NT/Tas)	Blacktown International Sports Park, 12pm
Tue, Apr 19	Queensland v Vic Metro	Metricon Stadium, Gold Coast, 2pm
Fri, Apr 22	Vic Metro v Western Australia	Avalon Airport Oval, Werribee, 10am
Fri, Apr 22	Allies (NSW/ACT/NT/Tas) v South Australia	Avalon Airport Oval, Werribee, 12:15pm
Fri, Apr 22	Vic Country v Queensland	Avalon Airport Oval, Werribee, 2:30pm
Sat, Apr 30	Queensland v Allies (NSW/ACT/NT/Tas)	Metricon #2, Gold Coast, time TBC

 

[Albertross]

We are on our way. Maddy and Georgia, 2 great signings if true!

Oh...and heck Carlton!!!

 

[boncer34]

We are on our way. Maddy and Georgia, 2 great signings if true!

Oh...and **** Carlton!!!

We talking Nat Fyfe and Dusty Martin type signings or George Hewett and Matt Kennedy?

 

[The Prosecutor]

We talking Nat Fyfe and Dusty Martin type signings or George Hewett and Matt Kennedy?

Not really educated on AFLW, but Prespakis is 21, she won the AFLW Rising Star in 2019 and the Brownlow equivalent in 2020. She also won Carlton B&F in 19, 20 and 22.

Also...

 

[Albertross]

We talking Nat Fyfe and Dusty Martin type signings or George Hewett and Matt Kennedy?

Maddy is one of the best midfielders in the game. Rising Star and League BnF winner.

Georgia plays Fwd, lightly framed but can hit the scoreboard, hopefully a bit more often playing in a better team than Carlton. She was good the year the Blues made the GF, patchy since, like most of the team.

 

[CrowdedHouse]

Everybody do the chant from Wolf of Wall Street for the incoming Maddy Prespakis.

ONE OF US... ONE OF US... ONE OF US...