2022 AFL Women's season 7

2022 AFL Women's season 7 was the seventh season of the AFL Women's (AFLW) competition, the highest-level senior women's Australian rules football competition in Australia. The season featured 18 clubs, marking the first time all Australian Football League (AFL) clubs participated in the competition, and ran from 25 August to 27 November, comprising a ten-round home-and-away season followed by a four-week finals series featuring the top eight clubs. It was the second AFL Women's season to take place in the 2022 calendar year and the first to have an August start date. AFL clubs, , and  featured for the first time in season 7.

won the premiership, defeating by four points in the 2022 AFL Women's season 7 Grand Final. Brisbane won the minor premiership by finishing atop the home-and-away ladder with a 9–1 win–loss record. Brisbane's Ally Anderson won the AFL Women's best and fairest award as the league's best and fairest player, and teammate Jesse Wardlaw won the AFL Women's leading goalkicker award as the league's leading goalkicker.

Background
In August 2021,, , and  – the four Australian Football League (AFL) clubs yet to receive an AFLW licence at the time – were granted licences to join the AFL Women's competition in what was then slated to be a 2022–23 season, meaning all 18 clubs would have an AFLW team for the first time. In May 2022, a one-year bridging collective bargaining agreement (CBA) was announced which would see the competition's seventh season begin during the AFL pre-finals bye in the last weekend of August and conclude with the grand final in the last weekend of November. The CBA also saw player payments rise by 94% across all four payment tiers, with eight players per club occupying the top two tiers and the minimum (tier 4) wage increasing from $20,239 to $39,184. Later in May, AFL head of women's football Nicole Livingstone revealed that the season would be named AFLW season 7, in a deviation from previous seasons.

The season 7 fixture was announced in early July. Match times on Saturdays in September (except 24 September, the date of the AFL Grand Final) were floating to maximise doubleheader opportunities, and the final round was released as a floating fixture to be determined later in the season. In August, after the round 1 match between Essendon and Hawthorn was moved from ETU Stadium to Marvel Stadium following a sell-out, Livingstone said that the AFL would consider moving more matches to larger venues depending on ticket sales; the round 2 match between and  was moved to the Melbourne Cricket Ground to act as a curtain raiser to the AFL qualifying final between  and.

Season 7's Indigenous Round was launched in early September, and was played across rounds 3 and 4. The round is held to acknowledge the significant contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and girls to Australian football and the broader community. Aunty Pam Pederson, the youngest daughter of Sir Douglas Nicholls, was announced as the round's honouree, and all 18 teams wore specially-designed guernseys across the two weeks. Melbourne rebranded itself as the Narrm Football Club for Indigenous Round, as it did during the corresponding round of the AFL season; Narrm is the traditional name for Melbourne in the Woiwurrung language. Pride Round, which was played in round 8, was launched in early October. The round is held "to promote and support diversity and inclusion of LGBTQI+ communities and families, and acknowledges the AFL's journey to being a more inclusive sport"; this season's iteration also celebrated allies of LGBTQI+ people within the sport. Like with Indigenous Round, all 18 teams wore specially-designed guernseys for the occasion.

The season began on 25 August with a match between and  and concluded on 27 November with the 2022 AFL Women's season 7 Grand Final, contested by  and Melbourne. The season featured ten home-and-away rounds, the same as the previous season, and a four-week finals series, up from three weeks the previous season; the finals were contested by the top eight teams, up from six the previous season, and the finals system was the same as the AFL's. Melbourne won its first AFL Women's premiership, defeating Brisbane by four points in the grand final, played at Brighton Homes Arena. All matches throughout season 7 were broadcast live on the Seven Network and Fox Footy, and could be streamed via Kayo, womens.afl and the official AFL and AFLW apps.

Home-and-away season
All starting times are local time. Sources: womens.afl (fixture and results), Australian Football (crowd figures)

Progression by round
Source: Australian Football

Home matches and membership
The following table includes all home match attendance figures from the home-and-away season.

Source: Australian Football

Finals series
All starting times are local time. Sources: womens.afl (fixture and results), Australian Football (crowd figures)

Win–loss table
The following table can be sorted from biggest winning margin to biggest losing margin for each round. If two or more matches in a round are decided by the same margin, these margins are sorted by percentage (i.e. the lowest-scoring winning team is ranked highest and the lowest-scoring losing team is ranked lowest). Home matches are in bold, and opponents are listed above the margins.

Source: Australian Football

Season notes

 * Brisbane kicked 33 goals across the first three rounds of the season, an AFLW record, and became the first AFLW team to score more than 200 points across the first three rounds of a season.
 * Four teams recorded scores of 0.1 (1), the lowest score in AFLW history, during the season: Fremantle in round 2 against Geelong, Greater Western Sydney in round 5 against Adelaide, Sydney in round 6 against North Melbourne and West Coast in round 10 against Melbourne.
 * Brisbane won the minor premiership by the closest practical margin, finishing above Melbourne on the ladder by 0.3 percentage points; had Melbourne scored just one more point during the season, it would have won the minor premiership.

Major awards

 * The AFL Women's Grand Final best-on-ground medal was awarded to 's Shannon Campbell, who became the first player to win the award in a losing team.
 * The AFL Women's best and fairest was awarded to Brisbane's Ally Anderson.
 * The AFLPA most valuable player was awarded to 's Monique Conti; captain Chelsea Randall was voted as best captain and most courageous player, while Richmond's Eilish Sheerin was voted as best first-year player.
 * The AFLCA AFLW champion player of the year was awarded to 's Jasmine Garner; Brisbane coach Craig Starcevich was voted as coach of the year.
 * The AFL Women's All-Australian team was announced on 22 November; Garner was named captain, while Brisbane captain Breanna Koenen was named vice-captain. North Melbourne captain Emma Kearney was selected for the seventh consecutive season. Anderson was not selected, becoming the first AFLW player to win the league best and fairest award but miss All-Australian selection in the same season.
 * The AFL Women's leading goalkicker was awarded to Brisbane's Jesse Wardlaw.
 * The AFL Women's Rising Star was awarded to 's Hannah Ewings.
 * The Goal of the Year was awarded to 's Ashanti Bush.
 * The Mark of the Year was awarded to 's Chloe Scheer.

Leading goalkickers
! rowspan=2 style=width:2em | # ! rowspan=2 | Player ! rowspan=2 | Team ! colspan=10 | Home-and-away season (AFL Women's leading goalkicker) ! colspan=4 | Finals series ! rowspan=2 | Total ! rowspan=2 | Games ! rowspan=2 | Average ! 1 !! 2 !! 3 !! 4 !! 5 !! 6 !! 7 !! 8 !! 9 !! 10 !! F1 !! F2 !! F3 !! GF ! scope=row style=text-align:center | 1 ! scope=row style=text-align:center | 2 ! scope=row style=text-align:center rowspan=3 | 3 ! scope=row style=text-align:center rowspan=2 | 6 ! scope=row style=text-align:center | 8 ! scope=row style=text-align:center rowspan=5 | 9
 * align=left | Jesse Wardlaw || align=left | || 22 || 13 || 47 || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 29 || –9 || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 211 || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 112 || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 214 || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 317 || bgcolor=CCFFCC | 219 || 120 || X20 || 222 || 022 || 22 || 12 || 1.83
 * align=left | Kate Hore || align=left | || 11 || 01 || 12 || 24 || 15 || 38 || 19 || 211 || 314 || 216 || 016 || X16 || 117 || 017 || 17 || 13 || 1.31
 * align=left | Courtney Wakefield || align=left | || 00 || 22 || 13 || 25 || 27 || 07 || 07 || 411 || 112 || 113 || 013 || 114 || colspan=2 |  || 14 || 12 || 1.17
 * align=left | Ashleigh Woodland || align=left | || 33 || 14 || 04 || 15 || 05 || 49 || 211 || 011 || 011 || 213 || 114 || 014 || 014 ||  || 14 || 13 || 1.08
 * align=left | Eden Zanker || align=left | || 11 || 01 || 23 || 14 || 04 || 26 || 28 || 210 || 111 || 213 || 114 || X14 || 014 || 014 || 14 || 13 || 1.08
 * align=left | Eden Zanker || align=left | || 11 || 01 || 23 || 14 || 04 || 26 || 28 || 210 || 111 || 213 || 114 || X14 || 014 || 014 || 14 || 13 || 1.08
 * align=left | Eden Zanker || align=left | || 11 || 01 || 23 || 14 || 04 || 26 || 28 || 210 || 111 || 213 || 114 || X14 || 014 || 014 || 14 || 13 || 1.08
 * align=left | Chloe Scheer || align=left | || 00 || 00 || 00 || 00 || 33 || 14 || 37 || 18 || 19 || 413 || 013 || colspan=3 |  || 13 || 11 || 1.18
 * align=left | Kate Shierlaw || align=left | || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 44 || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 26 || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 28 || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 19 || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 110 || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 111 || 011 || 011 || 112 || 113 || colspan=4 |  || 13 || 10 || 1.30
 * align=left | Kate Shierlaw || align=left | || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 44 || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 26 || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 28 || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 19 || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 110 || bgcolor=C9F0FF | 111 || 011 || 011 || 112 || 113 || colspan=4 |  || 13 || 10 || 1.30
 * align=left | Tahlia Randall || align=left | || 33 || 03 || 03 || 03 || 14 || 37 || 07 || 18 || 210 || 010 || 010 || 111 || 112 ||  || 12 || 13 || 0.92
 * align=left | Greta Bodey || align=left | || 22 || 24 || 37 || 07 || 07 || 18 || 19 || 110 || 111 || 011 || 011 || X11 || 011 || 011 || 11 || 13 || 0.85
 * align=left | Tayla Harris || align=left | || 11 || 01 || 01 || –1 || 34 || 15 || 27 || 310 || 010 || 010 || 010 || X10 || 010 || 111 || 11 || 12 || 0.92
 * align=left | Courtney Hodder || align=left | || 22 || 13 || 03 || 14 || 04 || 15 || 16 || 17 || 07 || 29 || 09 || X9 || 211 || 011 || 11 || 13 || 0.85
 * align=left | Danielle Ponter || align=left | || 11 || 01 || 23 || –3 || –3 || –3 || 14 || 15 || 27 || 29 || 110 || 010 || 111 ||  || 11 || 10 || 1.10
 * align=left | Aine Tighe || align=left | || 11 || 01 || 12 || 24 || 26 || 17 || 07 || 07 || 07 || 411 || colspan=4 |  || 11 || 10 || 1.10
 * }
 * align=left | Danielle Ponter || align=left | || 11 || 01 || 23 || –3 || –3 || –3 || 14 || 15 || 27 || 29 || 110 || 010 || 111 ||  || 11 || 10 || 1.10
 * align=left | Aine Tighe || align=left | || 11 || 01 || 12 || 24 || 26 || 17 || 07 || 07 || 07 || 411 || colspan=4 |  || 11 || 10 || 1.10
 * }
 * }

Source: Australian Football