The 2021 AFL Women's season was the fifth season of the
AFL Women's
AFL Women's (AFLW) is Australia's national semi-professional Australian rules football in Australia, Australian rules football competition for women's Australian rules football, female players. The 2017 AFL Women's season, first season of the l ...
(AFLW) competition, the highest-level senior
women's Australian rules football
Women's Australian rules football (in areas where it is popular, known simply as women's football or women's footy or women's AFL), is the female-only form of Australian rules football, generally with some modification to the laws of the game. ...
competition in Australia. The season featured 14 clubs and ran from 28 January to 17 April, comprising a nine-round home-and-away season followed by a three-week finals series featuring the top six clubs.
won the
premiership, defeating by 18 points in the
2021 AFL Women's Grand Final. Adelaide won the
minor premiership
A minor premiership is the title given to the team which finishes a sporting competition first in the league standings after the regular season but prior to commencement of the finals in several Australian sports leagues.
Origins
The etymolo ...
by finishing atop the home-and-away ladder with a 7–2 win–loss record. 's
Kiara Bowers and 's
Brianna Davey tied for the
AFL Women's best and fairest award as the league's best and fairest players, and 's
Darcy Vescio won her second
AFL Women's leading goalkicker award as the league's leading goalkicker.
Format
The previous two AFLW seasons were formatted with the assistance of
conferences
A conference is a meeting, often lasting a few days, which is organized on a particular subject, or to bring together people who have a common interest. Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always d ...
, which split the league's clubs into two ranking tables. The AFL elected to remove the conferences for the 2021 season and revert to a single ladder. Under the terms of the existing contractual bargaining agreement between the players and the AFL, teams will play nine regular season matches, before a three-week finals series for the top six teams occurs. Owing to the fact clubs will not get the opportunity to play all of their opponents once, the AFL placed the teams together in a single 2020 ladder and then broke them up into brackets to attempt a fair fixture for the 2021 season.
The season was played during the second year of the
COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...
. As the season began, Australia had largely settled into a paradigm of most states maintaining zero COVID-19 cases outside of their international travel quarantine systems; this allowed football games to be played in front of crowds, usually with reduced capacity, and unhindered interstate travel was permitted without quarantine. However, the different state governments often responded quickly to small numbers or even single virus cases being discovered in the community; this meant border restrictions or quarantine periods were at times re-introduced at short notice, impacting interstate travel for games; and, in some cases, that city- or state-wide lockdowns could be imposed within the impacted states, precluding football activities altogether. The season's original nine-round fixture was discarded due to such restrictions after only one week, in favour of a floating fixture released around any restrictions in place at the time.
Home-and-away season
All starting times are
local time.
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
Round 4
Round 5
Round 6
Round 7
Round 8
Round 9
Ladder
Progression by round
*Numbers highlighted in green indicates the team finished the round inside the top 6.
*Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the team finished in first place for that round.
*Numbers highlighted in red indicates the team finished in last place for that round.
Finals series
Qualifying finals
Preliminary finals
Grand final
Win–loss table
Awards
League awards
*The league
best and fairest
In Australian sport, the best and fairest award recognises the player(s) adjudged to have had the best performance in a game or over a season for a given sporting club or competition. The awards are sometimes dependent on not receiving a suspensi ...
was jointly awarded to
Kiara Bowers of and
Brianna Davey of , who polled 15 votes each.
*The
leading goalkicker was awarded to
Darcy Vescio of , who kicked 16 goals during the home and away season.
*The
Rising Star was awarded to
Tyla Hanks of .
*The best on ground medal in the
AFL Women's Grand Final was won by
Kate Lutkins of .
*The goal of the year was awarded to
Courtney Hodder of .
*The mark of the year was awarded to
Danielle Ponter of .
[
* AFLW Players Association awards:
**The ]most valuable player
In team sports, a most valuable player (MVP) award is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particular competition, or ...
was awarded to Brianna Davey of .
**The most courageous player was awarded to Chelsea Randall
Chelsea Randall (born 14 June 1991) is an Australian rules footballer playing for the Adelaide Football Club#AFL Women's team, Adelaide Football Club in the AFL Women's competition. She is one of the club's inaugural AFLW team co-captains, and ...
of .[
**The best captain was awarded to Ellie Blackburn of .][
**The best first year player was awarded to Ellie McKenzie of .][
*The AFLW Coaches Association awards:
** The champion player of the year was awarded to Kiara Bowers of .
** The senior coach of the year was awarded to Craig Starcevich of .
* Brianna Davey was named captain of the ]All-Australian team
The All-Australian team is an all-star team of Australian rules football in Australia, Australian rules footballers, selected by a panel at the end of each season. It represents a complete team, including an interchange bench, of the best-perfo ...
. Twelve of the fourteen clubs had at least one representative in the 21-woman team.
*The minor premiership
A minor premiership is the title given to the team which finishes a sporting competition first in the league standings after the regular season but prior to commencement of the finals in several Australian sports leagues.
Origins
The etymolo ...
was won by .
*The wooden spoon
A wooden spoon is a Kitchen utensil, utensil commonly used in food preparation. In addition to its culinary uses, wooden spoons also feature in folk art and culture.
History
The word ''spoon'' derives from an ancient word meaning a chip of woo ...
was "won" by .
Best and fairests
Leading goalkickers
*Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the player led the season's goal kicking tally at the end of that round.
Source:
Coach changes
Club leadership
Notes
References
External links
Official AFL Women's website
{{AFL Women's
2021 AFL Women's season
AFL Women's seasons
AFL Women's season