When the first ball is bounced on Thursday, August 14, it will not just mark the beginning of the 2025 AFLW season, but the tenth season of the league, close to nine years on from the inaugural campaign.
Nine years may not sound like a lot of time in the grand scheme of the sporting landscape, but the expansion and development of the AFLW in those few years has been rapid. The significant improvement of the league has not been lost on Collingwood's star defender and 2022 best and fairest Jordyn Allen, even with the frustration of uncertainty still clouding the recently announced Round 1 fixture.
"There is no clarity beyond Round 1 unfortunately, I know as much as you do," Allen told media on Monday. "We're looking forward to Round 1 against the Blues, it will be good to play them again ten years on from that first AFLW game."
Collingwood players were able to hear from three members of that inaugural game ahead of the start of their official preseason. Brianna Davey, who played for Carlton at the time, Ruby Schleicher and Brittany Bonnici shone a light on the leaps and bounds the league has taken toward professionalism since its inception.
"We heard from Bri, Ruby, and [Brittany], they did a bit of a storytime. I was there [at the first AFLW game], age 16, in the crowd. There was some really different experiences, and it was interesting to hear how much the AFLW has changed since then. We got an insight into what their week looked like prior to that game, and it is significantly different to what AFLW looks like now.
"They used to do all-night trainings. Ruby was saying she was working between disability support work and babysitting. She was flat out all day, every day. There wasn't the attention to detail in terms of sleep, nutrition, the resources were completely different.
"Now, we're starting to move closer towards what a full-time program looks like. We're all day training now, which has made a significant difference, we can prioritise our nutrition and our sleep and just the amount of time we can spend at the club and around each other."
The move toward becoming a full-time athlete has created a "quarter-life crisis" for Allen, as she recently finished her degree to allow her to become a paramedic with Ambulance Victoria. However, she will now need to weigh up her availability with the AFLW requiring a greater focus.
"It's so great that the AFLW is in a position now where we're approaching full-time football and I'm having to make some decisions about shift work with Ambulance Victoria and football," Allen said. "Parademics is on the back burner for now, so I'm just trying to figure out what that looks like going forward. It's something I want to pursue and maintain but I'm super grateful AFLW is in a position now where we can prioritise it and I don't need to rely so heavily on an alternative career."
This has been amplified by the improved access to resources for the women in their off-season.
"It's been a good transition into preseason so far," Allen said. "The nature of AFLW is you feel you have a really long offseason. The way that we've been handled in the 'pre pre-season' period has really set us up for success going into this actual official pre-season.
"[Collingwood's] philosophy on it was you either work from home or work from the club. We still have a prescription that we have to follow, we have resources here that are available to us. Every club does it a little bit differently, so we had some players that were available and were able to come in and made the effort to prioritise their football.
"But our team has mums, parents, people who are caretakers for their families, so we gave them some more flexibility to be able to work from home and do their prescription away from the club."
While there is still a clear discrepancy between the load of the men's and women's competitions, the AFLW appears to be moving in the right direction to provide its athletes with more stability and security.
Season 10 of the AFLW begins on August 14, the league given a prime time slot ahead of Round 23 in the AFL.
