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AFL\u2019S EXPLORING 2026 WOMEN\u2019S REP FOOTY<\/p>\n
Two prominent young AFLW stars want the women\u2019s game to be included in representative football after the successful State of Origin revival on Saturday.<\/p>\n
It comes amid reports the AFL is keen to introduce women\u2019s representative football in 2026.<\/p>\n
7News Melbourne reporter Xander McGuire on Tuesday night that the league was exploring two avenues: A traditional Origin clash \u2014 which would see Victoria play either Western Australia or South Australia \u2014 and an Australia-Ireland clash, considering there were just under 40 players on AFLW lists in 2025.<\/p>\n
McGuire said the AFL\u2019s preferred slots for any rep games would be in June \u2014 during the AFL season byes \u2014 or late July\/early August.<\/p>\n
Collingwood\u2019s Ash Centra and Western Bulldogs\u2019 Jasmyn Smith on Tuesday both side there\u2019s an appetite for marquee matches, even if they are played in the height of their off-season.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely, I think it would be pretty cool, to see how many people were at the WA game a couple of days ago now,\u201d said Centra, the 2024 Pick 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cSixty-thousand, it would be cool to see if the women can pull that off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jasmyn Smith would love rep footy to be introduced into the women\u2019s game. Picture: Michael KleinSource: News Corp Australia<\/p>\n
Smith, who played five games for the Suns before crossing to the Bulldogs at the end of 2023, would play for Queensland in a traditional state-against-state clash after growing up on the Gold Coast.<\/p>\n
But the Bulldogs midfielder is happy to go one step further than a State of Origin, declaring a competition-wide interest in an Australia against Ireland clash.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think state v state would be really cool to see, but there\u2019s also been a lot of talk about the Irish versus Australian team,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s that talk at the moment as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The AFLW pre-season doesn\u2019t kick off officially until May, meaning the players have half of the year away from their clubs.<\/p>\n
That time off leads Smith to believe there would be an influx of girls putting their hand up to play a game in February, saying it would be a major benefit to their fitness.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely, I think we have such a long pre-season it would actually be beneficial to get a few more games under our belt in the off-season period,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Hawks are keeping a lid on their joy around a star teammate\u2019s contract call, while there\u2019s a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[233553,638,64,63,689,55,56263,639,26513,246291,236652,119657,73839,1127,246292,13659,2105,2485,92519,246295,7492,27723,8401,246289,51310,246288,218846,246290,647,7198,3530,677,246296,246287,701,60074,246286,141751,246293,1124,63405,85,204573,246294,660,3439,698,103337],"class_list":{"0":"post-486782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-aami-community-series-live","9":"tag-afl","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","13":"tag-australian-football-league","14":"tag-australian-team","15":"tag-australianfootballleague","16":"tag-contract-call","17":"tag-coy-response","18":"tag-finals-victories","19":"tag-finger-injury","20":"tag-footy-news","21":"tag-fox-footy","22":"tag-fresh-push","23":"tag-geelong-cats","24":"tag-getty-images-inc","25":"tag-gold-coast","26":"tag-hawks-duo","27":"tag-hawthorn-duo","28":"tag-hawthorn-hawks","29":"tag-home-and-away-season","30":"tag-jack-ginnivan","31":"tag-jasmyn-smith","32":"tag-josh-weddle","33":"tag-marquee-matches","34":"tag-match-simulation","35":"tag-mega-contract-call","36":"tag-melbourne","37":"tag-michael-willson","38":"tag-nick-watson","39":"tag-oceania","40":"tag-origin-injury","41":"tag-origin-plans","42":"tag-queensland","43":"tag-rep-footy","44":"tag-rep-games","45":"tag-representative-football","46":"tag-season-byes","47":"tag-south-australia","48":"tag-special-talent","49":"tag-sports","50":"tag-star-teammate","51":"tag-state-v-state","52":"tag-victoria","53":"tag-western-australia","54":"tag-western-bulldogs","55":"tag-xander-mcguire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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