A league of their own

A revolutionary plan by the South West Football League will provide a senior competition for women starting next season.

The Women Open Football League will run side-by-side with the existing colts, reserves and league competition, after the SWFL’s delegates last month voted to go ahead with the competition

According to SWFL president Barry Tate, all 10 of the league’s clubs supported the concept and nine clubs confirmed they would field a team for the 2017 season.

The Eaton Boomers will be the only club not participating because of uncertainty over their club facilities next season.

Tate said that if some clubs were short of numbers, they could combine with another club for the 2017 season before setting up their own team.

“There will be four games played on the same day,” he said.

“There will be a sub-committee put together to investigate all options and they will come back to league and have an open discussion of all the options and all clubs will also have input.”

This sub-committee will decide how many rounds the season will go for, how many players would be fielded in each game and the length of the quarters.

Tate said he expected the sides would be limited to only 16 players and they would contest either two 30-minute halves or four 15-minute quarters.

“That will be a decision for the sub-committee to make” he said.

Tate said the time was right to set up the competition with the AFL women’s league also ready to start.

“We are trying to come up with a win-win situation for all parties,” he said.

“The juniors competition finishes at 17, so this will give the girls something to go to afterwards.”

Tate said the addition of the teams to each club was expected to help boost memberships and crowds.