The curtain officially fell on the AFLW season on Tuesday night, with the W Awards a celebration of the year that was.
The night was filled with highlights. Brisbane captain Emma Zielke’s hoarse voice after days of Grand Final celebrations was a notable one.
It culminated with the crowning of both Collingwood captain Brianna Davey and Fremantle star Kiara Bowers as dual league best and fairests.
A fitting ending given the two were comfortably the most impactful players of the 2021 season.
Davey polled five consecutive best on grounds to get to 15 votes, while Bowers’ consistency saw her picking up votes across the count.
Of course, Bowers’ controversial overturning of her one-game suspension ultimately led to the draw as she polled the one final vote she needed in the Round 9 clash she otherwise would have missed.
Ellie Blackburn and Alyce Parker fell one vote short playing as star midfielders in teams that missed finals.
Monique Conti also managed 12 votes after picking up seven in a winless team last year. If you wanted to forecast a future winner, Conti, as the Tigers improve, looks a likely one.
Melbourne’s Tyla Hanks was crowned the season’s Rising Star, edging out top draftee Ellie McKenzie and capping off a breakout season as the Demons’ most important midfielder behind Karen Paxman.
For the second straight season, a third-year player has claimed the Rising Star award and the rules may need some tweaking to give the 18-year-olds more of a chance.
Hanks continues the unbeaten streak of AFLW Rising Star winners also making the All-Australian squad. She is though the first to not make the final 22.
On the All-Australian 22, it was also named on Tuesday night.
It was always going to be an incredibly hard team to pick, particularly on-ball and up forward.
Depending on your tolerance for midfielders being named inside 50 – Ellie Blackburn, Jasmine Garner and to a lesser extent Erin Phillips – the team was mostly controversy free.
Of course, there are always snubbings – how can there not be? Someone worthy always has to miss out.
Western Bulldogs star Isabel Huntington ranked first in the competition for marks inside 50, contested marks and fifth for total scoreboard impact, but missed out as four midfielders were picked on the bench.
Collingwood’s Stacey Livingstone and Melbourne’s Kate Hore can also consider themselves extremely unlucky to not feature.
Premiers Brisbane only had one representative in the team, Kate Lutkins, which seems odd on paper, but makes sense when you consider their even spread of contributors across the season.
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AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan noted in his speech to kick off the night that season five was AFLW’s best yet, and he is right.
The 2021 season also felt notable as almost the beginning of the end of the league’s first era.
The Grand Final result coming full circle from 2017 a fitting part of that.
The inaugural faces of the league in Erin Phillips and Daisy Pearce both have decisions to make on whether they will play on as both go under the knife for surgery.
In that vein, 2022 looms as the league’s biggest premiership yet.
The six finalists will be in the mix again, Carlton will hope they’re still in their window and the likes of the Bulldogs, Richmond and St Kilda are on the rise.
2022 will in all likelihood be their last tilt at a flag before the expansion tornado rips through the league again and resets a number of lists.
The third wave of expansion will be the most interesting yet, with the new teams having a blueprint of what works and what doesn’t and the existing teams likely also better equipped to keep hold of their stars.
Whether it’s 16 or 18 teams in 2023, the landscape of the league will shift once more, particularly with a new CBA to be negotiated and a longer season presumably coming.
While players, coaches and staff got the chance to celebrate the year on Tuesday night, attention will quickly turn to next year and taking full advantage before further league shake-up.
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