This Week In Football is a collection of some of the best in football currently outside the walls of AFL clubs or broadcasters. Each week a curated grab bag from regular contributors and special guests will provide insight into and beyond the game on subjects of their choosing. For more about our contributors, click here.
Got an idea or want to contribute? Email thisweekinaustralianfootball at gmail dot com
Banner images by Polly Porridge of the True Bloods Podcast. Check out her other design work.
Before the Bounce
As we enter the second week of Sir Doug Nicholls Round, increasing calls have been made to seek other rounds of celebration, recognition and action.
Some have asked about Multicultural Round – which has been transitioned into the Cultural Heritage Series.
Others have made – maybe – slightly less serious calls for acknowledgement.
The events of the last few months on and off the field have prompted increasing calls for a round of recognition and promotion of the cause of mental health as well.
There’s nothing wrong with those calls. It is worth noting that awareness and talking are one thing, but a far better public focus would be campaigning to address the shameful underfunding and inaccessibility of vital mental healthcare in this country.
Sport, politics and social issues are inexorably interlinked. Sport is a reflection of the society it exists in, often with social norms and rites that draw from it. Sport is just a microcosm of broader life.
In that sense a round focusing on assisting mental health awareness would be better than nothing. But it would be far more powerful if it was to linked to a broader set of actions, rather than a recognition of those who have slipped or fallen.
It shouldn’t take a public series of stories, or a death, to prompt us into action to help address mental health care in Australia.
If the AFL does eventually choose to focus on a mental health round, they may have to consider their linkages to industries that have detrimental effects on broader mental health in Australia.
Bring on change for how we talk about and treat mental health issues – with or without a football round to support it.
This Week In Football we have:
Debutants are all around us
Earlier today Essendon announced that Angus Clarke, pick 39 in the 2024 National Draft, will make his debut on Friday night when the Bombers face off against Richmond in the Dreamtime at the ‘G clash.
The young South Australian becomes the sixth Essendon player to make their debut in 2025, following Isaac Kako (Round 1), Tom Edwards (Round 2), Saad El-Hawli (Round 3), Archer Day-Wicks (Round 9), and Lewis Hayes (Round 9).
The Bombers’ announcement got me thinking about the record for the number of players making their debut across a teams’ first 10 games of the season in more recent years, i.e., excluding Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney during their first year in the league.
At the time of writing only their opponents in the Dreamtime clash, Richmond (seven), have played more debutants across their first 10 games of the 2025 season. The Bombers draw equal with Euro-Yroke (St Kilda), who used six debutants in their first 10 games.
In contrast, Collingwood, the Gold Coast, and Hawthorn have not played a first gamer across their initial 10 outings – although the Suns have the opportunity to do so in their clash against the Saints (which is their tenth game of the season courtesy of ex-tropical cyclone Alfred).
Looking at the year-by-year breakdown for clubs reveals some interesting patterns. For example, Essendon had no debutants during the first 10 games last year.
However, 2025 is the first year since 2013 where Hawthorn have not blooded a debutant in their first 10 games of the season (although they have had several players make their club debuts – Ginnivan, Barrass, Battle, Chol, etc.).
Kuwarna (Adelaide) holds the post-2012 record for the highest number of debutants played by a club across their first 10 games of the season.
Eight first-gamers were used over this timeframe in 2020: Fisher McAsey (Round 1), Ned McHenry (Round 2), Will Hamill (Round 3), Shane McAdam (Round 4), Andew McPherson (breaking the streak in Round 6), Kieran Strachan (Round 9), Harry Schoenberg (Round 10), and Lachlan Scholl (Round 10).
If you’re interested in seeing how some of these debutants have panned out for clubs, check out Emlyn Breese’s great visualisations of how draftees have been retained and how they perform, which featured in last week’s edition of This Week in Football.
The subs of the Gold Coast sky?
Emlyn Breese / CreditToDuBois.com
Digging into interchange stuff to assist Cody and Sean’s article on the ABC last week (go read it) left me with way more data than could ever fit into one article, so it’s probably something I’ll come back to a few times.
Today I’m diving into the use of the sub, focusing from 2023 onwards (when the current tactical sub rules were introduced, rather than requiring a player be medically unable to continue in order to be subbed off).
The thing that jumps out to me immediately is Gold Coast as a real outlier, only needing to use their substitute to replace an injured player six times since the tactical sub was introduced.
This data is gathered from the match reports on the official AFL website, so it’s possible that it’s not perfect. But it matches up with Gold Coast consistently having a really limited injury list across the same period. In August 2024 the Suns had a total of 95 games missed through injury – a full 20% below the next healthiest squad.
Compare this to the Bulldogs, who have had to activate a sub to cover injury 44% of the time. This gives the Suns a much freer hand when deciding when and how to deploy an impact player.
Those with my specific brand of trauma (Editor: Melbourne coded alert) will be having a visceral reaction to the sole game Narrm went through without activating its sub in September 2023.
When teams have the option though, how do they use it? Let’s isolate just games where both subs were used tactically rather than injury driven, to see who is Han Solo and who is Greedo.
Across the three years Hawthorn are the standout in aggressive use of the sub, pulling the trigger 75% of the time. Sydney (25%) and Brisbane (32%) initiate far less.
If we break it down to just 2025 we see some pretty interesting changes. Brisbane has reversed their previous trend, initiating the sub 2/3rds of the time. Adelaide is the most aggressive this year and Hawthorn is split down the middle.
The Dogs have been pretty cautious both this year and across the previous two, which is understandable given how often they have had to call upon their sub to cover an injury.
The last thing we’ll look at is the types of player used and the output gained from them.
As you’d expect, most clubs stick to medium-height players that can play a range of roles rather than key position players when naming their sub.
In terms of output we can look at time on ground as well as a projected rating points output if the player had 80% time on ground for the game.
Gold Coast and Sydney are getting the highest impact per minutes from their subs. Angus Sheldrick for the Swans is a clear leader among players named as sub more than once – averaging 7.2 rating points in just 25% of game time across his 5 games as sub. Gold Coast’s numbers are boosted by impressive games by David Swallow and Nick Holman, and some solid work put in by Jake Rogers in his 4 games starting with the vest.
There’s a lot more in this data – the next thing I’ll probably look at is when clubs use their last rotation and when they’re stuck with multiple players on the bench through injury.
As always hit me up on BlueSky if you’ve got any feedback or questions. In the meantime I’ll be trying to figure out what Gold Coast’s secret to health is.
Trouble at the coalface on Lygon Street?
Cody Atkinson
Win the hard ball, win the game – or so the abridged saying goes.
Since Michael Voss took over at Carlton no side has been better at winning first possession at stoppages than Carlton. If you remember what he was like as a player that’s no surprise.
In 2021 – the year before Voss took over – Carlton finished third last for first possession differential. They finished that season 13th for points differential from stoppage, but were able to convert their first possessions into clearances at about league average rates – 77.5% of the time to be clear. In short – low quantity, decent efficiency, subpar output.
This is the first short diversion of this short piece. Winning first possession isn’t a guarantee that you win a clearance. If you aren’t in enough space when you get your hands on the ball, or there isn’t enough support around you, winning first possession can turn right into a repeat stoppage or (significantly worse) a turnover and opposition clearance. Sean Lawson and I wrote a bit on this topic for the ABC recently.
In the Voss era Carlton has finished 4th, 2nd and 2nd for first possession differential. This year they are streets ahead of the competition with a differential of +9.1 per game. If that holds it’ll be the biggest differential in the last half decade.
So there’s a big tick for winning the ball. But what’s even more interesting is that they’ve gotten less effective at getting the ball to the outside of the contest successfully.
In Voss’s first season (2022) the Blues sat fourth for converting first possessions to clearances. That translated into the second best clearance differential in the league, as well as the second best clearance scoring differential.
Since then the Blues haven’t finished in the top half for conversion from first possession to clearances. This year they are sitting second last for first possession conversion, ahead of just the Tigers at 72%. They also allow opposition first possession to clearance at a relatively high rate – 77%, or fifth worst in the league. This indicates that they might be hunting the ball a little too much at the expense of holding space and structuring up correctly at contests.
The eye test tends to back this up, with the Blues often pack hunting for ball at the bottom of contests. While it is a great thing to watch a player emerge from the hardest of contests with clean ball, it can hurt you the other way if you overcommit.
The Blues do sit fifth for clearance differential and seventh for scoring differential from clearances, but this is comparatively low considering how much early ball they win.
This year the big culprits are Tom De Koning and Sam Walsh.
De Koning gets his hands on the ball at stoppage more than any other Blue, but he’s also among the worst at converting that early ball to clearances. He’s only converting to clearances 66% of the time – well below both league and ruck average. The only other two first choice rucks with a lower conversion rate are Luke Jackson and Kieren Briggs – and both of those players take the ball from stoppages first far less of the time. This could be an earlyish season anomaly for TDK – it’s a drop from his previous two seasons, but that drop has been continuous over time.
Second diversion – and it’s a question. How sure are we that TDK is going to be the best in his position one day as the hype machine goes? He’s good in the air, very good at winning the ball on the deck, but maybe a bit average defensively and from a spacing POV. Just a question for now.
Of more surprise at face value is Sam Walsh, who sits at a rate of just 63%. Walsh’s trends might be even more concerning as well. The former number one draft pick has not finished with a conversion rate above league average since 2021. While Walsh does his best work as first receiver from players like Patrick Cripps, it appears that he struggles to get the ball out in tough situations compared with his comparable players across the league.
So how does Voss fix this shortcoming in the short term? Well, the de-emphasis of Walsh in the middle might be a sign that some things are changing – his volume of first possessions has dropped considerably this year. For De Koning the goal might be sitting up in the contest a little more and applying pressure rather than pouncing at will. A focus on balance might assist the defensive side of their stoppage game as well.
Or – perhaps somewhat radically – it might be a problem that Voss sees as secondary to their broader issues across the ground and in transition from the defensive half.
There’s only so many problems you have time to fix, even if the season drags on forever.
AFLW and women’s league crowds
Sean Lawson
Women’s sport is in a place now where many events can get huge crowds.
The Matildas now routinely sell out international friendlies – your scribe has been caught out missing their upcoming match against Argentina in Canberra due to it selling out weeks in advance. The women’s soccer World Cup in 2023 averaged 30,000 people per game. Women’s State of Origin crowds now outstrip men’s NRL games.
A Crows grand final at Adelaide Oval has drawn 50,000 people. Overseas, the right promotion of the right derby or rivalry matchup in soccer can net tens of thousands of people in Mexico or Brazil or England.
At 12 games per season, the AFLW is inching closer to a fuller season of 17 matchups but remains a fair way off. To extend the season, the AFL has imposed a crowd “target” of 6000 people per game in order to allow the season to go even to 14 rounds in the next few years.
Much has been written about the headwinds imposed on the league achieving this target. Obstacles like 5pm weekday time slots, far-flung and poor quality venues in some cities, and superheated near-summer conditions have no doubt hurt attendances.
I thought I’d try to contextualise the AFLW into the broader landscape of women’s sport and show where it sits, and how it’s tracking against attendance in other peer leagues. It’s an important context for asking whether criticisms of crowd numbers, and the target for expansion, are particularly fair.
There’s clearly an ever-greater interest in attending women’s sport. However, since those boom attendances are so far mostly concentrated in “event” games like internationals, tournaments, finals, and certain hyped up rivalries, it is surely not how we should be judging the regular week-to-week grind of domestic league attendance.
Here’s a look at every domestic club’s home game crowds in their most recent season:
The average attendance at regular standalone home games in Australian women’s sport is about 2,500 people. Of these leagues, Super Netball is easily the highest drawing.
In fact, in Perth and Adelaide, the netball side outdraws the four other local teams combined. Netball is the biggest women’s ticket in every city it’s played.
Aside from the larger footprint of most netball, for all other sports in this country, week-to-week domestic attendance at is generally in a similar place: a few thousand attendees per team for standalone games. Indeed, no team outside netball meets that AFL benchmark of 6,000 people per game, and they all play netball.
Habitual mass attendance at regular week-to-week games just isn’t so widespread a behaviour yet for the new women’s leagues in traditionally male sports, but that lag shouldn’t be a surprise or a criticism. Men’s leagues have had a century and a half of cultural centrality and ingrained habit behind them, during which time the same culture was largely suppressing the very idea of women’s professional sport.
The picture mostly looks broadly similar globally, though with some notably successful case studies to look at.
Many other soccer leagues have lower crowds than shown below, I just selected the soccer leagues with known high attendances, such as the biggest European countries’ leagues plus the American WNSL and the Mexican league. I couldn’t find IPL crowds but a news report suggests crowds there averaged about 9,000 to 13,000 people with the biggest crowds topping 30,000, putting the richest women’s cricket league potentially near the forefront of women’s spectator sport globally as well.
Some notable findings here.
- Something that stands out immediately is how especially well the two big American women’s leagues do in terms of crowds. Portland and Seattle are long-time women’s soccer powerhouses and are now joined by two other big west coast soccer teams in San Diego and LA. Meanwhile Caitlin Clark has driven massive growth in attendance for the Indiana Fever this season.
- We should again note just how relatively big netball is on a global scale. The West Coast Fever have the second biggest average attendance of any women’s team I can find outside of North America, and the Vixens, Lightning and Swifts all stack up really well too.
- Then there are Arsenal and FC Barcelona. Playing most of their games at their club’s big primary stadium, recruiting superstars, basically never losing, and building much bigger crowds than anyone else in their league. It’s not exactly a model that can be replicated in a league with a salary cap and a draft, but it’s a notable example of one way women’s clubs are building bigger things.
- Elsewhere in Europe, we can see much more modest crowds at most clubs, far more in line with the sort of lower key domestic attendance typical in Australia.
In general then, the AFLW probably doesn’t stack up too badly. AFLW crowds are pretty typical among Australian sporting leagues, and notably fairly tightly clustered on a global scale with no dominant outliers. This parity is probably a strength, since all clubs are pretty equal in terms of salary cap and the like. The AFLW won’t see growth by building a few superstar clubs and a bunch of also-rans. We’re not going to have an Arsenal or FC Barcelona dominating the league.
How do crowds grow? A lot is probably just waiting a generation or so for massified attendance habits to build and culture to develop among the current generation of new fans, but I would suggest one of the biggest controllable factors is a regular, convenient, and well-liked home ground.
Overseas, whether it’s Arsenal at Emirates or Seattle and Portland inner city venues, the home ground matters. In the AFLW the biggest drawing teams have popular venues like Windy Hill, Henson Park and Alberton Oval to call home.
The Brisbane Roar lead the ALW in standalone crowds by playing at Perry Park on a rail line and potentially the location of a future whole-of-club home.
Teams playing at the same ground as the mens team, such as the Newcastle Knights and Geelong, can also do quite well building on existing habits at a known ground.
It seems obvious but building the habit of attendance means making a venue appealing to go to in the first place. In other words, get the vibes right.
Around the grounds
Here’s plenty more stuff that isn’t from here but is good to take in about footy
- Jonathon Horn from The Guardian is basically a lock in this section. This week, his take on grief and sport is an essential read.
- Andrew McGarry from the ABC looks back into history for the 20th anniversary of the last AFL game at a suburban Melbourne venue.
- ESPN draft expert and occasional TWIF contributor Jasper Chellappah has his updated draft power rankings with a firming leading pack for fans to start getting their head around as club fortunes become clearer this season.
- There was a forum hosted by the Tasmanian Government which picked at many elements of the Hobart stadium plan (h/t ABC).
- Also on the Hobart stadium, Dan Brettig from NineFax covers comments by Cricket Australia boss Todd Greenberg saying the Tasmania stadium roof designs are “unacceptable” for any form of cricket to be played in daylight.
- The great Ricky Mangidis at Shinboner breaks down Bailey Dale’s 49 possession game
- The Squiggle power rankings is starting to show some signs of movement. It looks like there might be a small group clubhouse leaders amid an 11 team contending pack.
- The Swans and Essendon both announced they will be hosting the Pride Game this year, with St Kilda no longer involved.
Leave a Reply