17 AFLW GAMES IN 2026

I have been watching our sport of Australian Rules football since 1945, when I attended the famous Bloodbath Grand Final as an innocent nine-year-old. What I love about the game is the high marking , the precision kicking and the speed with which the ball transitions from the back to the forwards.

I support 17 games in both the AFL and AFLW as the best number of regular season games. (When and if a Tasmanian team joins the AFL, the figure 17 should be increased to 18.)

Every team should play every other team once. That’s the fairest and most sporting way.

I agree with my occasional fellow congregant Geoff Fox that “Fairness is fundamental to every effective social action we take and every social institution we wish to maintain. Do as you would be done by.”

But I suggest a modification to Geoff’s idea of 17 AFLW games in 2026 to a slower phasing in with 15 games in 2026 and 17 games in 2027.

Bill Uren, moral philosopher and scholar, Newman College. The 17th of November, 2025