Hub Exclusive: Night Grand Final to Stay for AFLW

AFL CEO, Andrew Dillon, has opened up exclusively to Hub Adelaide on the success of the AFLW after Saturday’s AFLW Grand Final.

“We’ve had a great season of AFLW and it was capped off with a cracking night grand final,” Dillon began.

“The standard of play, the attacking style [went to another level].”

Dillon went on to praise the attacking style, and how it is leading to more high scoring games of football.

“Even though North kept Brisbane to a goal tonight, they still did play well. They defended well, but it was certainly attacking [throughout the year].

“I think the skill level just goes up year after year. I think that’s the bit that I’ve seen and really noticed this year.”

The timeslot was a highly contentious issue for the AFLW Grand Final: the 7:45pm AEDT bounce was met with both praise and disappointment from fans.

“Thank God we didn’t play during the day today because the weather was terrible,” Dillon remarked.

Dillon also mentioned that the AFLW Grand Final will not be heading the same way as the men’s - to the MCG - at least in the short term.

Dillon stated that Ikon is “doing the job,” however he didn’t completely rule it out, saying that, “You’ll never say never.”

“[It was] fantastic, an awesome atmosphere, and look, we’d love to get to work with Carlton and the council here to see more people in here to see whether or not we can up the capacity for future games, if we have grannies here.

“It was a fantastic atmosphere, all the North fans are still here and loving it.

“It ticked the box tonight.”

With AFLW season now wrapped up, attention turns to the AFLW trade period and draft, before a new men’s season kicks off with opening round in March.