AFL WOMEN’S Rankings: Round 1 2022

The first round of the 2022 AFLW season passed with little surprise regarding who won – perfect tipping so far, woo-hoo! – although there were a couple of unexpected things within those results.

Lowly ranked Geelong came with eight points of 2021 finalist the Kangaroos, while last year’s premier Brisbane could manage only four scoring shots and currently sit on the bottom of the ladder, albeit against last year’s runner-up the Adelaide Crows. The rankings still have the Lions on top (just), however long-term injuries to defender Kate Lutkins (last year’s best afield in the Grand Final) and forward Dakota Davidson may hurt their fortunes somewhat.

Tigers burning bright?

One of the biggest improvers in terms of the rankings, and probably in the minds of many watchers, was Richmond who opened the season with a 38-point win against St. Kilda.

A note of caution though is that the Tigers were very accurate in front of goal, kicking 10 goals and just one behind, which they may find it hard to sustain. They had only five more inside 50s compared with the Saints, and committed more turnovers, although Monique Conti helped them to easily win the clearance battle.

Last season though the Tigers’ opponents were highly accurate in that they had the most points per scoring shot, so perhaps this is things evening out a bit and showing that the Tigers are around somewhere in the middle.

Getting time and space

Once again this round’s results showed the high value in the AFLW of being able to win uncontested possessions. All the round’s winners went over 100 uncontested possessions, while all the round’s losers bar Brisbane went under that mark. In contrast the spread of contested possessions among winners and losers was more even.

Really, a team’s ideal in Australian football would be to keep possession of the ball and advance it towards goal without running into pressure. My observation would that be in the men’s competition teams use a higher number of uncontested possessions to do this, more often maintaining long chains in which they move the ball laterally or backwards, and racking up more possessions per turnover. While this is done with the ultimate purpose of finding a way out of stoppages or a gap in the opposition defence, this could make the value of any single uncontested possession lower in the men’s game, and which is why winning the contested ball count is more often important.

In the women’s competition at its current juncture though, small differences in winning contested ball may matter less, and it may be more about having the skill and the game plan to be able to maintain possession once you have it.

One could certainly see this, for example, in how Melbourne was able to dominate possession against the Bulldogs on Saturday night, with players like Libby Birch, Tyla Hanks and Lily Mithen able to gather – and in Birch’s case intercept – a lot of possessions with no nearby opponent. Indeed the Demons looked about as impressive as advertised, and while they don’t quite yet sit atop these rankings, I have little argument against the betting market currently having them as (slight) premiership favourites.