On the eve of the AFLW's milestone 10th season, it's time to reflect on the strategic evolution of the women's game. Over four weeks, AFLW analyst Gemma Bastiani has dissected how the AFLW has evolved over its nine-season history, including how tactics, players and techniques have changed the game. This week, Gemma finishes the series with a look at the midfield's evolution. And check out her previous pieces in the series in the links below.

AFLW R/Evolution: Why the ruck role has evolved more than any other
AFLW R/Evolution: How defenders are getting more dangerous
AFLW R/Evolution: How the forward line has evolved in nine seasons

Players want to be in the midfield. It's where each play begins, in the thick of the action, and the position most likely to draw the eye of the umpires to poll League best and fairest votes. But it is also a particularly demanding position to play, and the effectiveness of a midfield group has the potential to make or break a team.

Ebony Marinoff is the reigning AFLW best and fairest winner, Jasmine Garner won the Grand Final best on ground medal, and stars Daisy Pearce, Erin Phillips and Emma Kearney all started their AFLW careers in the midfield.

Their individual impact has been more than impressive, but ultimately midfields are made up of several players, and must form more than a sum of their parts, establishing a sense of balance and strength across the whole unit.

The role of a midfielder

A starting midfield comprises of three onballers, a ruck – as discussed in the previous instalment of this series – and two wingers. How each of those players is used has a big say in a club's tactical brand.

Establishing a balance across that group is crucial to the midfield's effectiveness. Too many inside midfielders, whose first thought is to hunt the ball, and a club can be opened up on the outside. Too many outside midfielders, who act as receivers, and there is a real chance of handing control to the opposition.

The likes of Charlie Rowbottom and Eliza West are hard nut inside midfielders. They get in and under, and regularly lead their sides for contested possessions. And it's players like Monique Conti and Jasmine Fleming who tend to be the receivers, generating a little more space to move away from the contest on the outside.

Those who can effectively transition from inside the contest to that space on the outside are particularly dangerous. It is something that Marinoff and Fremantle's Kiara Bowers have evolved into over time. Largely starting as tough, defensive midfielders who rack up tackle numbers, they have been able to add ball winning and movement in space to their arsenal, without surrendering that defensive edge.

When it comes to defensive midfielders, or taggers, there used to be a sense of sacrifice in opting to play someone in that role. Essentially it was giving up a ball winner in an attempt to shut out one opposition player.

There are certainly examples of a purely defensive tagger having a big impact on games, none more obvious than Richmond's Meg Macdonald shutting down North Melbourne star Garner in round 10, 2022 (S7), keeping her to just 13 disposals after the Roo averaged 23.8 to that point of the season. It went a long way toward Richmond's result of a draw and, ultimately, qualifying for its first finals series.

But what the new generation of taggers have developed, causing them to now be called 'run-with' players, is the ability to win their own ball, while also limiting the impact of a direct opponent.

Lucy Single stood out in this respect in 2023, and Tanya Kennedy has become known for this style of play more recently. Not only are they doing damage by minimising their opponent's impact, but they are also forcing that opposition player to be accountable to them.

In the pursuit of balance, some clubs have lost some of their midfield depth as those players go searching for opportunity elsewhere, as Laura Gardiner's move from Geelong to Sydney demonstrated.

But long-term success in the midfield can only exist with the development of role players through the line over time. North Melbourne has done this very well in recent years, while remaining a highly successful club. First, Mia King was steadily moved from the forward line to the midfield to offer a sense of physicality and defensive support to Garner and Ash Riddell. And last year, Ruby Tripodi made a similar shift in the club's premiership season.

Midfield sophistication

Early in the AFLW's existence, there wasn't a lot of dynamism in how midfields operated. It was a highly contested, over-populated area of the ground, and as a result, movement coming out of those contested situations wasn't nearly as clean or efficient as it is today.

The layers around the rucking pair were much tighter than seen today, with a heavy focus on shutting down ball movement through sheer numbers and physicality. This caused somewhat of a rolling maul at times, where the ball would slide through various players' grasp without an effective tackle laid to trigger the reset.

Nine seasons on, there is a clear intention to create more space between layers around the contest, allowing for set plays to become more effective, and for powerful players to move out of stoppage into attack.

Set plays are another part of the game that has grown exponentially. By virtue of the limited time pre-seasons offered in those early seasons, and a need to prioritise skill and fitness development, there was little time left to bed down set play options through the midfield.

Brisbane did attempt to open a running lane for Ally Anderson at times, where she would sit at the back of a centre stoppage and get moving through the contest, connecting well with ruck Sabrina Frederick. But it stood out because it was somewhat of a rarity in the early days.

Now, clubs are training strategies to generate separation at stoppage for teammates and execute efficient, attacking clearances, rather than allowing the ball to be stuck in the mire of congestion and numbers.

Midfield assets

There are three specific areas that have helped ball movement improve across the course of the AFLW, with much of it starting in the midfield. Improving skills and strength around handballing has allowed better exit from contested situations, the vision to identify teammates in strong positions and switch the ball off the line has rewarded the positioning of wingers, and the willingness to spread and attack once the ball has moved out of stoppage have all been crucial.

Melbourne's premiership brand was built on neat handballing, either to chain out of the contest, or to hit up a runner from behind as part of slingshot attacking play. Adelaide's quick thinking and willingness to spread from the midfield has been a hallmark of its style since the League began. Brisbane's power and movement through stoppage helps it generate aggressive attack.

And North Melbourne's work moving from midfield into attack set a new standard in the last two years, thanks to its combination of stars and strategy, by moving the ball quickly and efficiently to its outside runners.

Handballing

While fundamental to the game, the development of effective handballing has been a development area of the AFLW as players become stronger and more skilful. In the last two seasons more than 39 per cent of disposal across the League has been by hand, the highest ratio since the competition began.

It doesn't always result in a dominant team – some resort to handballing when in a state of panic under pressure, or attempt a style that its available personnel aren't quite adept at executing – but for others it forms a key part of their ball movement.

For Melbourne, handballing has always been a key building block of its game, with between 38.7 per cent and 43.4 per cent of its disposal count handballs over the nine seasons. The gap of 4.7 per cent is the lowest of any inaugural team, and proves the brand consistency from coach Mick Stinear. By comparison, other inaugural sides have had shifts of more than eight per cent in their kick to handball ratio across the nine seasons, suggesting greater changes in game style over time.

Notably, five of the top seven handballers in 2017 were Demons who spent time in the midfield. More recently, it is Olivia Purcell and Tyla Hanks who have really led that style of play at the club, with the club's premiership campaign in 2022 (S7) built on an improved ability to move the ball slickly by hand.

Of the most recent four additions to the League, Essendon, Sydney and Hawthorn have identified handballing to be key to their ball movement. The former two have always incorporated handballs, while Hawthorn developed a more strategic approach to its midfield set-up in 2024, opting to incorporate more movement by hand than it previously prioritised.

Meanwhile, Port Adelaide has gone in a opposite direction. As a highly contested, stoppage heavy team, it works to get ball to boot in congestion and gain territory.

Wingers

The way teams opted to structure up in the first two seasons – before anti-density rules were introduced – could be curious. With only 16 players on the field, the use of wingers wasn't uniform, so while often each club had two wingers present at the reset, that wasn't always the case.

Instead, clubs might choose to add a sixth player to its defensive or attacking line, so to combat this, most coaches identified an attacking winger and a defensive winger who were responsible for equalising should their opposition start within an arc.

In that first season, Collingwood was most likely to send a winger – usually Steph Chiocci - into the defensive 50 for centre stoppages, who would then come up to the stoppage once the ball was thrown in the air.

Once the AFL introduced the anti-density (or '5-6-5') rule ahead of the 2019 season, in which clubs must have five players in the forward 50, six players between the arcs, and five players in the defensive 50 for every centre stoppage, things became a little more rigid.

While some clubs did prioritise the use of their wingers, the best of whom were players who were disciplined in their positioning and didn't get drawn into the play, effectively using those players required vision from those with the ball. Early AFLW was typically very straight-line footy, moving long and direct from stoppage rather than taking time to shift lanes to the open side.

Melbourne acknowledged the running capacity and discipline of Cat Phillips in that first season, and the midfield group progressively became better at identifying her positioning in space, to great effect. Meanwhile Brisbane had a tendency to start mobile ruck Sharni Webb on the wing, ready for a handover with main ruck Sabrina Frederick to take stoppages around the ground.

But the value and impact of wingers has increased season on season, with the best in the competition reliably sweeping back to support the defence, and also able to slide forward to impact on the scoreboard. It is a role that offers a link between the half-back and half-forward lines, with their impact arguably larger in the AFLW compared to the men's due to just 16 players taking to the field.

North Melbourne's use of its outside runners has been essential to its success in recent seasons. The movement of Taylah Gatt, Tess Craven and Amy Smith running the wings is key to the club's transition from the contest into the forward line.

There are some coaches who use that wing position in a slightly different way, choosing to put an experienced player onto the wing not necessarily to offer gut running back and forth, but instead to be a more effective on-field coach, identifying opposition strategy around stoppage and helping to guide teammates to combat that.

Lucy McEvoy at Sydney was used in such a way for portions of 2024, helping to point out things like opposition defenders coming up to become a sweeper at stoppage, and guiding her side around tap choices or midfielder positioning.

Spread and attack

Turning midfield work into attack and, ultimately, scores hasn't necessarily had a consistent correlation to premiership success in recent seasons, but it is certainly an indicator of style and strength around the contest. That being said, North Melbourne and Melbourne led the League for average points from stoppage in their respective premiership seasons of 2024 and 2022 (S7).

What is becoming more prevalent, however, is individual players who can turn their midfield strength into scores, and that is something that has steadily grown over the course of the nine AFLW seasons to date.

Some of this is by way of midfielders spreading forward to kick goals, and some is a result of midfielders rotating between the two lines.

The work of Erin Phillips for Adelaide was the clearest example of this spread from midfield to attack in early seasons, a specific role which was ultimately taken over by Danielle Ponter when Phillips moved to Port Adelaide.

For others like Jasmine Fleming, Zarlie Goldsworthy and Bonnie Toogood, it is a result of a planned rotation.

The ability to spread effectively from stoppage, and make early decisions on which direction to move, is something Adelaide has done particularly well for several seasons. Playing with a trust in her defensive line permits Anne Hatchard to make effective split-second decisions, allowing her to move freely into space and become an option on turnover attack.

By playing this way, Hatchard led the League for average marks throughout 2022 (S6) with 6.8 per game – still a record average today.

North Melbourne is another team whose spread away from contest is devastating in attack. Expanding and contracting as the ball is won or lost, there is a genuine understanding across the full midfield group as to the mode of the game.

And it is by developing this kind of spread that West Coast has greatly improved its ability to score from stoppage under new coach Daisy Pearce last season.

West Coast's growing score from stoppage

Season	Avg. Points from Stoppage	Season Rank
2022 (S6)	7.2	13th (of 14)
2022 (S7)	4.8	18th
2023	9.5	18th
2024	12.5	9th

In earlier seasons, the Eagles set up at stoppage in a very tight layer, making it especially difficult to expand away from the contest. In addition to this, the combination of both Emma Swanson and Aisling McCarthy in that midfield group – both very strong, hard ball players – meant the focus was on contested footy, rather than that spread into space.

By 2024, however, the combination around the ball had changed, with Bella Lewis and Ella Roberts leading the midfield group, both of whom had a rotation into the forward line throughout games. There was a clear intention to turn clearance into a running outside game, engaging midfielder Jaide Britton and transitioning the footy in space, rather than from contest to contest.

Ultimately, the midfield unit is the area of the ground most ripe for tactical innovation, and clubs have only just started to scratch the surface in the AFLW across the opening nine seasons. With new coaches and new talent coming through, there is potential for further development through the middle of the ground in this, the 10th season.

The 2025 NAB AFLW season kicks off on Thursday, August 14 between Carlton and Collingwood, followed by West Coast v Gold Coast later that evening.