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<\/p>\nWest Coast AFLW defender Georgie Cleaver believes women\u2019s football and the AFLW is improving due to more opportunities available in junior ranks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the AFLW now in its 10th season, the development and junior pathways are getting more refined, with fewer cross-coders like Cleaver entering its ranks, unlike its earlier days.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Over the weekend, several first-years debuted and took the competition by storm, with experts likening this crop of draftees to the 2001 AFL super draft, which included the likes of Luke Hodge, Chris Judd and Gary Ablett Jr.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Round 1\u2019s Rising Star nomination went to West Coast\u2019s Lucia Painter after kicking three goals, but Cleaver\u2019s former East Fremantle teammate and Sydney young gun Zippy Fish was also a strong contender with 26 disposals on debut.<\/p>\n
Collingwood\u2019s Ash Centra, Gold Coast\u2019s Havana Harris, Carlton\u2019s Poppy Scholz, Adelaide\u2019s Indi Rasheed and Essendon duo Grace Belloni and Holly Ridewood also captivated the AFLW community.<\/p>\n
Cleaver says this weekend\u2019s showing from the first-year players is a by-product of junior development pathways and opportunities improving.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe [Painter] had an outstanding game. She\u2019s so exciting and one of the hardest-working players that\u2019s come to the club,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cShe\u2019s really footy-focused and always wanting to get better, asks heaps of questions, and she fits in perfectly. She\u2019s got a funny personality. She gets so well with everyone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEven all the other girls that debuted in other teams as well, I think the women\u2019s footy community is getting a lot better. Everyone\u2019s starting younger and able to get more opportunities in women\u2019s teams.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really excited to see how the AFW comp will grow with all these great players getting drafted there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Western Australia\u2019s female talent development program is matching this upwards trend, with a record 14 players set to be involved in the AFLW Draft Combine this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This comes off the back of a strong National Under-18s Championship campaign, which saw five of its players selected in the All-Australian side \u2013 another record broken for WA.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
WA Football Female talent manager and coaching specialist,\u00a0Trent Cooper, says this is pleasing and exciting to see.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I started at WA football, they were just coming into their 16s, and we\u2019ve had them for two and a half years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA couple of full pre-seasons in our program and they\u2019ve developed well. We knew early on that there was a lot of real top-end talent, Evie Cowcher, Olivia Wolmarans, those types of players.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s been pleasing has been the development of a few of the players that probably weren\u2019t even known on the Eastern Seaboard who\u2019ve come along really well and earned those invites, which all comes down to who the AFL clubs want to see.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for cross-coders, fewer are being seen across the competition, with some opting to drop their chosen sport in favour of AFLW. Cleaver has revealed that she has parked her netball career to focus on footy as she enters her second AFLW season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It comes as other netballers, like Olivia Lewis, are also following Cleaver\u2019s footsteps and turning their backs on netball careers, due to a lack of opportunity, financial and job security\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 19-year-old juggled both Netball and Aussie Rules responsibilities with West Coast Eagles and West Coast Fever throughout her first season after being taken in the AFLW National Draft with Pick 39 in 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Cleaver, she says, making this decision has only helped her develop her footy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSomething I really worked on in the off-season was my kicking and my marking,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a bit of an unconventional kicking style, but it\u2019s getting a lot better now with the help of Robbie Wiley, who\u2019s our kicking coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always been a bit scared of going back with the slide or coming through big packs. I\u2019m not sure why I\u2019m consciously scared of that, but I think maybe through netball, you\u2019re not allowed to contact.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve really done lots of work with defensive marking and spoiling and that, and I think it\u2019s only getting better now, which is exciting.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
IMAGE: Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West Coast AFLW defender Georgie Cleaver believes women\u2019s football and the AFLW is improving due to more opportunities…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82665,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-82664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82664","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=82664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}