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10th season of the AFLW

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in AFLW Melbourne Demons

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In the lead-up to the 10th season of the AFLW, here are some cherry-picked fun facts from Gemma Bastiani's AFLW Revolution series:

• In 2024, 14.6 per cent of all AFLW players were 180cm or taller, compared to just 6.6 per cent in the inaugural 2017 season.

• Melbourne’s average of 58.9 points in 2023 is the second highest average score, behind Adelaide’s 59.1 in 2019.

• Average tackles inside 50 across the league increased from 8.8 in 2017 to 14.1 in 2024.

• The Demons' premiership-winning defence in 2022 was the tightest defensive performance in AFLW history (avg. 18.6 points conceded).

• It wasn’t until 2021 that a player recorded 20 or more hitouts and two or more goals in a game.

• L.Pearce is highlighted as the first player in AFLW to record 20 or more hitouts and 20 or more disposals in a game and did it twice before any other player achieved the feat (and it’s only happened 10 times since).

• In the last two seasons more than 39 per cent of disposal across the league has been by hand, the highest ratio since the competition began. Melbourne is an exception, as “handballing has always been a key building block of its game, with between 38.7 per cent and 43.4 per cent of its disposal count handballs over the nine seasons. The gap of 4.7 per cent is the lowest of any inaugural team…”

There’s more analysis in the articles themselves, for example about the changing role of wingers and the reasons behind a weakening of midfield depth, as well as how increased training time and access to facilities has allowed for the development of the game away from a focus on personnel and one-on-one contests to systems, structures and better team coherence. Worth a read:

https://www.afl.com.au/aflw/news/1321475/aflw-revolution-how-the-forward-line-has-evolved-in-nine-seasons

https://www.afl.com.au/aflw/news/1325750/aflw-revolution-defence

https://www.afl.com.au/aflw/news/1335446/aflw-revolution-why-the-ruck-role-has-evolved-more-than-any-other

https://www.afl.com.au/aflw/news/1336001/aflw-revolution-the-clear-shift-in-strategy-thats-helped-midfields-boom

There's also this re: the soft cap, which provides useful context for some of the off-field stuff going on, particularly the difficulty facing assistant coaches:

https://www.afl.com.au/aflw/news/1342210/aflw-clubs-wrestle-with-soft-cap-limits-after-afl-increase

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    Posting this as well in case anyone missed it. Great article on inaugural Demon Sarah Lampard. Love that they chose to focus on her, as the most unsung player of the few remaining at the Dees from season 1. It's been a bit of a winding road for sure, with two ACLs and interesting to read what she's doing off-field now for her PhD:

    https://www.afl.com.au/aflw/news/1342197/the-inaugurals-this-reliable-melbourne-demon-sarah-lampard-went-from-tagging-daisy-pearce-to-becoming-flag-teammates

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    • 3 weeks later...

    Some great content on the demons socials for the AFLW leaders. What a great bunch of girls with amazing respect amongst them and ‘real’ love and care for each other.

    If you want to get around something positive for the Dees the Woman’s program is definitely that. AFLW Season 10 will be something to look forward too.

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    Yes, was just coming to post these.

    I like how, rather than getting them to speak about themselves, which usually is difficult for people and can end up in kind of boring responses because no one wants to talk themself up, they've got others to explain why these players have been voted in, which gives us all a much better insight into what the group feels (the emotions!) and values.

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    In the lead-up to Season 10, I've been looking back over the 10 seasons and how our list has evolved since those early seasons and how our 2025 list shapes up.

    As we know, in 2025, three players (Lampard, Paxman and Pearce) remain at the Dees from the inaugural 2017 S1 Melbourne list of 28 (list size expanded to 30 for S2 onwards). After a lot of turnover initially, the number of original Dees players has remained fairly stable: S2 (20 inaugural players), S3 (14), S4 (11), S5 (6), S6 (5), S7 (5), S8 (4), S9 (4), S10 (3). Who will be the last one standing?

    Outside of the Demons, there are about 20 additional inaugural players still playing for their original AFLW team in 2025. There are also 11 inaugural Demons still on other AFLW lists.

    The average retention of active listed players between seasons has been 23 players. The retention of players between S9 and S10 (26 players) is our second-most behind the 27 players retained between S7 and S8.

    On our 2025 list, all but four players were originally drafted or signed to the Dees, the exceptions being Harris (Brisbane), Purcell (Geelong), Johnson (Port) and D.Taylor (Geelong). Including inactive players, on our list we have 24 Victorians, 3 Irishwomen, 2 Queenslanders, 1 South Australian, 1 Tasmanian and 1 Western Australian.

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    Also of interest to AFLW fans may be this article by Jason Lassey at SportsIndustryAU, which provides a deeper look into how the AFLW is faring in the lead-up to the 10th season.

    It covers attendance numbers, as well as TV audiences, impact on participation and the finances of the league.

    https://footyindustry.com/index.php/2025/07/08/the-aflw-endures-despite-the-same-old-critics-and-criticisms/

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