2020 AFL Women's season

2020 AFL Women's season
Overview
Date	7 February—22 March 2020
Teams	14
Premiers	Not awarded
Best and fairest	Madison Prespakis (‹See Tfd›Carlton) 15 votes
Leading goalkicker	Caitlin Greiser (‹See Tfd›St Kilda) 10 goals
Attendance
Matches played	46
Total attendance	205,050 (4,458 per match)
Highest	35,185 (round 2, ‹See Tfd›West Coast v ‹See Tfd›Fremantle)
← 2019 2021 →

The 2020 AFL Women's season was the fourth season of the AFL Women's (AFLW) competition, the highest-level senior women's Australian rules football competition in Australia. The season featured 14 clubs and ran from 7 February to 22 March; it was intended to comprise an eight-round home-and-away season followed by a three-week finals series featuring the top three clubs from each conference, however the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March saw the season curtailed and finally abandoned without a premiership being awarded. Australian Football League (AFL) clubs ‹See Tfd›Gold Coast, ‹See Tfd›Richmond, ‹See Tfd›St Kilda and ‹See Tfd›West Coast featured for the first time in 2020.

‹See Tfd›Carlton's Madison Prespakis won the AFL Women's best and fairest award as the league's best and fairest player, and St Kilda's Caitlin Greiser won the AFL Women's leading goalkicker award as the league's leading goalkicker.

Four new teams, ‹See Tfd›Gold Coast, ‹See Tfd›Richmond, ‹See Tfd›St Kilda and ‹See Tfd›West Coast, joined the competition, bringing the total number of teams to fourteen. This followed on from the inclusion of ‹See Tfd›Geelong and ‹See Tfd›North Melbourne in the previous season.^[1]

Prior to the season commencing a collective bargaining agreement failed to pass the player's association, with only 70% agreeing, falling short of the required 75% threshold. One of the demands of the dissenters was to have a longer season, so that all the teams could play each other once.^[2] The players later voted with a vote of 98% to agree to a revised agreement, which steadily increased the number of matches to be played over three years.^[3]

The conference system utilised in the previous season was retained for this season, though it was expanded to cater for the additional teams. Seven teams were placed in each of the two conferences, with teams playing all their intra-conference rivals once and two cross-over matches against teams from the other conference, resulting in an 8-round home and away season. The placing of the teams was determined by the AFL with competitiveness, list assessments and the previous season's results in mind.^[4]

The 2020 season was disrupted and then brought to an early end by the COVID-19 pandemic, which was formally declared a pandemic on 11 March 2020, prior to Round 6. The pandemic had the following effects on the season:

• All matches played from 14 March onwards were played to empty stadiums.^[5]
• The final two rounds of the home-and-away season were scratched and the finals brought forward by two weeks, being played based on ladder positions at the time.^[6]
• The finals series was expanded from six teams to eight. Under the original schedule, the top team in each conference was to advance directly to the preliminary finals while the second and third placed teams played off in semi-finals; but under the modified system, the fourth placed teams also qualified, and faced the first placed teams in semi-finals.^[6] Partway through the finals series, it was announced that no premiership will be awarded after the Victorian government announced a shutdown of all non-essential operations on 22 March 2020.^[7]

The originally scheduled eight-round fixture and make-up of the conferences was released on 29 October 2019.^[8]

• All starting times are Australian Eastern Time.^[8]
• ‹See Tfd›Richmond home games originally scheduled at the Swinburne Centre, the club's home ground, were later moved to Ikon Park out of concerns for crowd capacity.^[9]

• Numbers highlighted in green indicates the team finished the round inside the top 3.
• Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the team finished in first place in the conference for that round.
• Numbers highlighted in red indicates the team finished in last place in the conference for that round.

• The league best and fairest was awarded to Madison Prespakis of ‹See Tfd›Carlton, who polled 15 out of 18 votes.^[13]
• The leading goalkicker was awarded to Caitlin Greiser of ‹See Tfd›St Kilda, who kicked ten goals during the home and away season.
• The Rising Star was awarded to Isabel Huntington of the ‹See Tfd›Western Bulldogs.^[14]
• There was no Grand Final best on ground medal awarded, as the match was not played on account of the season's early termination due to the coronavirus pandemic.
• The goal of the year was awarded to Kate Hore of ‹See Tfd›Melbourne.^[15]
• The mark of the year was awarded to Rebecca Privitelli of ‹See Tfd›Greater Western Sydney.^[15]
• AFLW Players Association awards
  • The most valuable player was awarded to Jasmine Garner (‹See Tfd›North Melbourne).^[16]
  • The most courageous player was awarded to Kiara Bowers (‹See Tfd›Fremantle).^[16]
  • The best captain was awarded to Daisy Pearce (‹See Tfd›Melbourne).^[16]
  • The best first year player was awarded to Georgia Patrikios (‹See Tfd›St Kilda).^[16]
• The AFLW Coaches Association champion player of the year was awarded to Jasmine Garner (‹See Tfd›North Melbourne).^[17]
• Karen Paxman was named captain of the All-Australian team. Twelve of the fourteen clubs had at least one representative in the 21-woman team.^[18]
• ‹See Tfd›Richmond were the lowest ranked team overall, and thus could be said to have "won" the wooden spoon, though this is a contestable claim given the use of conferences.

• Numbers highlighted in blue indicates the player led the season's goal kicking tally at the end of that round. The total is updated following the conclusion of the round.

Source^[20]

• 2019 AFL Women's draft

• Official AFL Women's website