70-Hour Weeks, Part-Time Pay: AFLW Burns Out Its Coaches

Only three women now hold senior coaching roles in the AFLW: Daisy Pearce at West Coast, Lisa Webb at Fremantle and Tam Hyett at the Bulldogs. The number was higher earlier this year. Then Natalie Wood left Essendon after five seasons, and Lauren Arnell quit as senior coach of Port Adelaide before the season even began.

The exits aren't stopping at the top. Power assistant Sam Virgo, a former Brisbane Lion and All-Australian defender, quit this week. She said she was burnt out after four seasons juggling a full-time job with the part-time football role.

Who Gets Crushed

Workload is the common thread, and the numbers are brutal. At Essendon, Wood worked up to 70 hours a week. Arnell, who has a young family, said when she announced her resignation that she wanted to spend more time with them. She would have had no full-time assistant coach to share the load for the 2026 season.

A senior women's coach is surrounded by part-time staff and often ends up as coaching director, analyst, development coach and more. One person, doing the work of a department, on a part-time footing.

The men's game looks different. Carlton's Josh Fraser has a full-time mentor in Chris Fagan, who has unmatched experience. No such role exists in the AFLW. Research continues to show women carry the bulk of parenting and domestic workload, so the job lands on shoulders already loaded before the first training session.

Who Has the Power

The gender of an AFLW team's coach doesn't define the resources they are allocated. But the job is clearly harder for women. The most successful coaches in the competition's first decade have been Darren Crocker (North Melbourne), Craig Starcevich (Lions) and Matthew Clarke (ex-Adelaide). All are former AFL players with experience in the game, and they don't have to prove themselves to anyone. Most women have no prior experience coaching in the AFL system, and some have come straight out of playing. The door to that experience sits inside the same institution now asking them to prove themselves.

Club culture matters too. Two women with the credentials to coach said this week they wouldn't apply for the vacant Collingwood job because of the club's poor record with its women's programs, football and netball. Chief executive officer Craig Kelly cut ties with the netball team and declared the club remains "absolutely committed to growing, investing and developing women in the AFL program." Since then the Pies have finished 11th, 18th, 15th and 17th.

Players have become frustrated with mixed messaging. Kelly quietly re-signed coach Sam Wright before the season, then parted ways with him with one game remaining and one win to the club's name. Kelly also declared publicly there would be no external review. Days later the club backflipped and announced an independent and external review of its struggling program.

What They're Calling "Opportunity"

Four senior jobs are up for grabs. Candidates include Sydney assistant Tanya Hetherington and Giants assistant Emma Zielke. Recently retired Giants player Alicia Eva has made no secret of wanting to coach; she previously coached in the VFL and alongside Mark McVeigh in the Giants men's program. Kangaroos champion Emma Kearney will step straight into coaching when she retires, but prefers an assistant role.

Former Crows captain Chelsea Randall appears the front-runner for the Tasmania job. She would have a year to prepare a team in the VFLW before the club enters the competition in 2028, two years from now. Adelaide assistant Courtney Cramey is seen as a potential coach in waiting. Contract talks between Adelaide and current Crows skipper Ebony Marinoff are on hold until next season, and Marinoff is out of contract at the end of next year.

The Pipeline Runs Through the Same Men

Here's the detail worth sitting with. Crocker, Starcevich and Clarke are described as advocates of women's sport and leaders at their clubs, with links to top candidates: Kearney under Crocker; Arnell and Zielke under Starcevich; Randall and Cramey with Clarke at Adelaide. The path upward runs through the men who already hold the seats. Mick Stinear, who formed a premiership-winning combination with Pearce at Melbourne, has taken Geelong from 13th on the ladder to second in his first year there.

So the women who want the jobs are being mentored, and sometimes sponsored, by the incumbents. Meanwhile, the women actually doing the work are leaving: 70-hour weeks, no full-time help, a second job to pay the bills, and a club hierarchy that says one thing and does another. Vacancies get advertised. The structure that empties them stays exactly where it is.