RICHMOND player Sarah Hosking believes the AFLW hasn't been the same since the retirements of Daisy Pearce and Erin Phillips.
The two former stars were in attendance at Saturday night's NAB AFLW Grand Final between North Melbourne and Brisbane in differing capacities.
Pearce, who is now the head coach of West Coast's AFLW team, was watching on from the stands, while Phillips - who has just been appointed General Manager of Gold Coast's AFLW program - was commentating the game.
During their playing days, they had been among the competition's best players.
Pearce retired after captaining Melbourne to the 2022 (S7) premiership, with Phillips calling it quits in 2023 after a stellar career that included three flags with Adelaide and two AFLW Best and Fairest Awards.
Earlier this year the pair were inducted into the AFL Hall of Fame.
Tagged co-host Hosking believes the game is missing the two trailblazers.
"I saw one of AFLW's greats in the crowd, Daisy Pearce. She was sitting amongst the people. She's the woman of the people," Hosking said on this week's episode of Tagged.
"The other person was Erin Phillips … she was commentating the game.
"I think the game has not been the same since Erin and Daisy.
"They were bums on seats kind of players. Everyone knows them. Everyone respects them."
In a season where the young stars of the competition have been attracting the headlines, Tagged co-host Jordyn Allen feels that Hosking has discounted the talented teenagers making their way through the ranks.
"I think you're selling short the Poppy Scholzs, the Sophie McKays and the Zippy Fishs because I think they're putting bums on seats at the moment."
This season's Telstra AFLW Rising Star was hotly contested given the talent to come into the competition in 2025.
At last week's W Awards, Sydney's Fish was crowned the Rising Star ahead of Scholz, West Coast's Lucia Painter and Gold Coast's Havana Harris.
The AFL also announced that a new AFLW club membership record had been set in the competition's 10th season with 84,644 members.
The popularity of the competition has seen the Grand Final sell out on the past three occasions, with the game played at Ikon Park which has a capacity of 12,000.
Hosking believes that there should be further games played at Marvel Stadium, where the first-ever AFLW game between Hawthorn and Essendon was played in 2022 (S7).
"No one got to play a game at Marvel Stadium (this season). There was a big push for the Grand Final to be there," said Hosking.
"There was a game at Marvel Stadium between Hawthorn and Essendon in the first year that they came into the competition. I was commentating. It was … incredible.
"If you watched it at home, you would have noticed that the broadcasting was so much better. It was clear. It was easy.
"I don't expect everyone to sell out a full stadium, and maybe not just yet. But what they did was open up the lower ground, and it was packed.
"So when they were broadcasting, they just tightened the angles and the lens so that you could see the whole lower ground, and it looked amazing. The spectacle was incredible.
"I want more games there, and I loved what that did for AFLW."
