AFLW system under attack

WITH three rounds of AFLW now complete, the lopsided nature of the competition’s conference system – in which the top five sides overall are stacked together in Conference A – is coming under attack.

Critics are concerned that despite the competition being the best yet in terms of scoring and skills, because the top two sides from each conference play in finals, the best teams overall won’t qualify.

But the AFL’s head of women’s football, Nicole Livingstone, is sticking by the system.

“We believe in the conference system,” she said yesterday.

“We acknowledge that at the moment, at Round 3, that the conferences do look a little different, but they are separate conferences and separate ladders.

“Unfortunately because people are used to seeing an AFL ladder being one ladder, they are merging them together. So we just need to remind people that they are two separate ladders in two separate conferences and there is quite a battle going on in those conferences to get to the top two positions.

“We think that in the last four rounds there will be some changes in the way it looks, given that we’ve got a lot of inconference games, so where we are at Round 3 is potentially not where we’ll be at Round 7.”

Livingstone said none of the 10 AFLW clubs had expressed any concerns to her.

Crows head of football operations Phil Harper said the club wouldn’t be making judgment on the new system before the end of the season.

“We are open to new and innovative ideas and we will wait until the season plays out before judging it,” he said.

“Right now, we just have to win games of football to make sure it isn’t a problem for us.”

While Livingstone supported the system, she was open to future changes to how the conferences are determined.

Final ladder positions from last season were used to determine the conferences.