BREAKING NEWS: Finalists announced for 2024 Football Woman of the Year awards
A group of the AFL industry’s most talented and inspiring female figures have been recognised as finalists for the Essendon Women’s Network 2024 Football Woman of the Year awards.
Hosted by the EWN and Fujitsu General Australia at this year’s Grand Final Roast on September 26 at Crown Palladium, six nominees are in the running for the Football Woman of the Year while another four will be up for the Community Award.
Among the nominees for Woman of the Year are Essendon AFLW player Alex Morcom, sports journalist Marnie Vinall, former AFLW legend Erin Phillips, MCC Commercial GM Tanya Gallina, FightMND’s Bec Daniher and Chris Summers from the West Coast Eagles.
- Sharlene Higginson, Ella Stephenson, Deanne Coates and Kellie Burns are all nominated for the Community Award, which celebrates the efforts of women supporting football at the local level.
Grab your tickets for the Fujitsu General Australia Grand Final Roast here.
Essendon has regained a top-eight AFLW spot after grinding their way to a 23-point win over a Western Bulldogs side that set some unwanted history at Whitten Oval.
The first AFLW match between the clubs was a dour mistake-ridden affair, with the Bombers notching a fourth straight win in just 15 days.
Essendon’s 3.8 (26) to 0.3 (3) victory moved them up two places to seventh.
The Dogs became the first AFLW side to be held goalless three times in a season and recorded their lowest score for the second straight game, after recording just four points against the Kangaroos last Saturday.
With wind and fatigue from a condensed fixture schedule not helping, scores were at a premium, with Essendon gifted the first two goals of the game after receiving 50-metre off-the-ball free kicks.
Please AFL just come out and say we will never have a fixture like this again…#AFLW
— Kate McCarthy (@kateemac9) October 11, 2024
As both sides played one or two spare defenders behind the ball, each struggled to create scoring opportunities.
“It’s a little bit disappointing, to be honest,” former AFLW player Kate McCarthy said on Seven’s broadcast.
Has Audio Duration: 28 minutes 1 second.
Listen 28m
Are Port and Freo are the best AFLW teams you don’t hear about?
“We’ve got two coaches that are happy to just have either two or one spares behind the ball and they’re just happy to turn the ball over, intercept it and go back.
“It’s sort of like, which coach is going to blink first? No-one’s equalised ahead of the ball so far, and it’s just making it a really scrappy game.
“I know there’s ways around the spare, but at times there’s been two or three spare players in the opposition defence.”
Lack of accuracy in ball movement and the excess of defenders resulted in both defences snuffing out numerous raids by taking a lot of intercept marks, as the ball ping-ponged between the two arcs.
Leave a Reply