GREATER Western Sydney stalwart and multi-sport athlete Chloe Dalton has retired from the AFLW.

Dalton suffered a back injury last year that ruled her out for the season, and while it's understood she nearly got back to full training over the off-season, she has decided not to go around again.

Turning 32 next month, she has also represented Australia in rugby sevens – part of the gold-medal winning side at the Rio Olympics in 2016 – and played a handful of WNBL games at the start of her extensive sporting career.

She will have some form of an ambassadorial role at the club for at least the remainder of the year.

It's understood GWS has opted not to replace Dalton in the squad of 30, having already signed three replacement players – Viv Saad (for Meghan Gaffney, ACL), Caitlin Fletcher (Pepa Randall, off-season retirement) and Sophie Kavanagh (Haneen Zrieka, pregnancy) – since December's Telstra AFLW Draft.

Like all teams, if the Giants drop below 24 available players during the season, they will be able to add a top-up player – most likely an over-ager from the club's academy, who is already a train-on player – for the squad for the match in question. The train-on players join training once a week to help boost numbers for match sim drills.

Dalton retires with 32 AFLW games to her name over seven seasons, having started her career at Carlton. At her best, she was a powerful outside runner who was difficult to bring down, but injuries hit hard in recent years.

She also sat out the 2021 AFLW season in a quest to qualify for the delayed 2020 Tokyo Games, but a fractured cheekbone ruled her out of contention.

Dalton also has a flourishing women's sport platform, called The Female Athlete Project.