WITH the expansion announcement of the AFLW competition, all 18 teams will now field a women’s side. 

Inaugural Blue Darcy Vescio welcomes the addition of the final four sides, noting that girls and women all over Australia will now have more opportunities to play at the top level of the competition. 

“It's a very exciting day, it’s awesome to think about women being able to wear every AFL colour and having all the clubs invested as well,” Vescio said. 

“I think it makes sense that once all [18] clubs are in, then we can really make moves on where we need to go.”

Never dreaming that there would be an AFLW competition in her lifetime, Vescio is proud of the shift in mindset and for the hard work put in to get the competition up and running. 

“Often we do things just because that’s the way they’ve always been done,” she said. 

“It takes really strong leadership and people to really push for things and create new opportunities for people who haven’t necessarily occupied that space before.” 

Carlton's 2021 Best and Fairest winner admitted she never thought the possibility of playing professional football would be available to her, therefore never leading her to dream of a change. 

“I probably wanted to play AFL and then realised that women didn’t play AFL so then just didn’t pursue playing footy any further,” she said. 

“I’m really fortunate to be in that age bracket where you can pull on those AFL colours now.

“I used to think about how obsessed I’d be with footy growing up, if I knew there was a women’s league coming, I would’ve been an unbearable child.”

With 18 clubs involved, the season will be tougher to navigate, with more games and more players to consider. 

Vescio thinks in a few years time, it will be time to re-shape how the AFLW season looks and potentially when the games are played. 

“We’ve sort of owned that summer slot for the past five years which has been pretty good but in the future, we might have to move towards a double header structure to ensure we can play more games,” she said. 

“From a playing perspective, with 18 clubs, it would feel funny to not play every team once and keep the season at such a short length, so I’m hoping that’s something that changes really soon.”

Having been accepted into the junior boys program in her hometown of Whorouly, the two-time AFLW leading goalkicker looks back on those days and is proud of the progress that the town has made since then, as well as the women’s football community as a whole. 

“I’m just really grateful that even though I was the only girl playing with the boys most of the time, they were so supportive and the coaches were really supportive and I always felt like I belonged there,” she said. 

“ I’m really thankful that the community treated me so well but also I’m really proud that the club I grew up playing for has a youth girls team operating from the very oval I played Auskick at.

“I’m pretty proud looking back and seeing how far the community has grown women's footy.”