Generally, when any sporting season is approaching the halfway point, patterns have developed and unknowns become knowns. Neither is true in the AFLW with four rounds gone and with five remaining.
Are Fremantle still the clear premiership favourites, or are Collingwood starting to change people’s minds? Will we ever get more than a couple of days – or hours – of notice for a fixture release or ticket sales? And perhaps also the existential thought: is footy really footy without fans in the stands?
We did learn their true value when Victoria’s five-day lockdown was lifted and spectators got the all clear to attend games again. And perhaps one other certainty, besides Erin Phillips’s ability to always dominate the contest, is the capacity of leagues, clubs and athletes to use their platforms to drive conversations around social change.
That was underlined by the Pride round in round two and will be again in round five’s Indigenous round.
As Cricket Australia’s Indigenous engagement specialist, Courtney Hagen, wrote in Siren Sport this week, “the AFLW hosting both a dedicated Indigenous round and Pride round this year in its short, 12-week season, shows incredible leadership from the national league. It is not often within our national sporting landscape that intersectionality is championed and celebrated, not only through dedicated rounds but through a greater intention that speaks larger volumes than any uniform will.”
It is this expanding of advocacy, celebration and conversation beyond these rounds that is making its mark. The weekend was a case in point.
The Adelaide Crows defeated Brisbane by 12 points in a thriller and looked fantastic in their Indigenous guernsey. The club announced earlier in the year they would wear the guernsey, designed by renowned Aboriginal visual artist Elizabeth Close and Crows player Danielle Ponter, at all away games in 2021 as well as during the inaugural Indigenous round.
The Crows also made the call to wear their Pride guernsey again last week after their Pride-round match become a last-minute lockout to fans and was rescheduled due to the ongoing effects of Covid-19.
Collingwood, meanwhile, have been determined to divert attention away from Eddie McGuire’s departure and his mishandled delivery in response to the Do Better report’s findings, and appear to be taking genuine steps to show this is a genuine, whole-of-club approach to rectify past regrets and build something better.
The Magpies’ AFLW team became part of that conversation this weekend via their support for the Free the Flag campaign in line with the club’s AFL and netball programs. The squad will now wear Free the Flag T-shirts during the warm-up for the remaining 2021 matches.
For Collingwood player Aliesha Newman, “the Free the Flag movement is bigger than one round of footy”.
These things might seem small or tokenistic, but can have an impact when driven by the players. We see the power of this when players take a knee, wear the names of those who have lost their lives on their shirts or refuse to take the court until a commitment is made. Agree with their position or not, it starts a discussion – a prerequisite for change. And while a majority of this activism has taken place in the US, particularly the Black Lives Matter movement, the ripples have made their way to Australia, and therefore also to Australian sport.
And so, this round was not only about Carlton claiming a five-point victory over Richmond in one of the most electrifying games of the season, and the Tigers’ valiant fight only to narrowly miss out on a first ever AFLW win. It was also about the presence of the orange socks again as part of their ongoing Carlton Respects campaign. Driven by club board member and Our Watch chief executive Patty Kinnersly, Carlton Respects aims to educate the community about gender equality to prevent violence against women.
Twitter lit up with comments such as “this game is amazing!”, “Vescioooooo!” and “turn on your tvs!”. But the timeline also included tweets wondering “why are Carlton wearing orange socks?” to which respondents linked back to the club’s campaign. Exactly the outcome desired from such an initiative: questions asked and conversations started.
Themed rounds, strategically driven social justice campaigns and educational programs are important, and sport has a unique power to help drive them. But the work done outside of those are equally – if not more so – important. And for a season that is so short, the fact the AFLW is using every opportunity for social causes speak volumes.
