WAFLW 2022 Season Review

While nobody ever doesn’t want to have the aim of winning a premiership, Swan Districts having two senior teams reach the WAFLW preliminary finals in 2022 make it difficult to be unhappy with the crack all players involved had.

WAFLW Grand Final day will take place this Saturday at Revo Fitness Stadium and while there won't be any Swan Districts teams involved in the League, Reserves or Youth Girls deciders, it wasn’t through a lack of effort throughout the entire 2022 season.

In the end, both the Swan Districts' WAFLW League and Reserves teams took part in preliminary finals last Sunday. While they both ended up losing to Claremont, they put in tremendous performances while there were plenty of encouraging signs from the Rogers Cup team throughout 2022.

Starting with the WAFLW League side in 2022, they came into the season on the back of a standout year in 2021 where they ended the season on top of the ladder and made the Grand Final only to just fall short against Peel Thunder.

It was a bit tougher going throughout the 2022 season. After only losing one game in all of the 2021 home and away season, Swans lost their first two matches this year although they did end up being against the two Grand Final sides, Claremont and East Fremantle.

Swans got their first win on the board in Round 3 against West Perth by 89 points at Steel Blue Oval and that was the start of a run of four consecutive victories followed up with wins against Subiaco, Peel Thunder and South Fremantle.

It was then time for the Swans to take on the top two teams again and they did lose to the Tigers by 42 points and then the Sharks by 40 points before bouncing back to beat West Perth by 53 points at Joondalup to steady to a 5-3 record on the season to remain inside the top four.

However, losses to Claremont, Subiaco and Peel Thunder put Swans in a precarious position on terms of finals before they bounced back to beat South Fremantle in Round 15.

Then a Round 16 loss to Peel again at Steel Blue Oval meant that Swan Districts had the bye in the last round and could do nothing but sit back and hope that Peel beat Subiaco to ensure the black-and-whites ended up reaching the finals again.

That ended up happening with Swan Districts finishing the season in fourth position with a 6-8 record to book in a first semi-final meeting with Peel Thunder that took place at Mandurah's Lane Group Stadium.

Swans ended up delivering a standout performance to win by five points and book in a preliminary final match up with Claremont at Revo Fitness Stadium.

While Swan Districts' season came to an end with the 18-point defeat, it turned out to be a season full of positives too to reach another preliminary final.

From the 2022 season, Swan Districts ended up having two players named in the WAFLW Team of the Year and they were captain Jess Cox and leading goalkicker Ashley Sharp.

Throughout the season, 23 different Swan Districts players were named in the Team of the Week at least once with defender Lauren Osborne and Jaime Henry earning the most selections with five.

Cox, Sharp and Abby Bushby were the three players from Swans named to the Team of the Week four times throughout the season with Tara Stribley, Eliza Gelmi, Courtney Zappara, Emily McGuire, Sarah Wielstra, Melisha Hardy and Isabella Edgley all named twice.

Emma Nanut, Tyla Fitzgerald, Hope Ugle-Hayward, Bianca Webb, Bethany Bond, Taylah Edwards, Taylor Pescud, Aimee Ralph, Demi Liddle, Tamzyn Beros and Ruby Mahony are the other Swans players to be named to the Team of the Week once.

Sharp was the leading goalkicker during the season for Swan Districts kicking 16 goals while Zappara kicked 11 and Edwards nine.

On the back of the 2022 WAFLW season, Swan Districts also had two players drafted into AFLW with Tara Stribley going to the Fremantle Dockers and Abby Bushby to the West Coast Eagles.

Meanwhile the Swan Districts WAFLW Reserves team also reached the finals by finishing the season in third position with a 7-5 record.

The Swans Reserves team then beat Subiaco emphatically in the first semi-final by 47 points before losing narrowly to Claremont in the preliminary final by just nine points.

Amber Ugle-Hayward had a standout season for Swan Districts to win the WAFLW Reserves fairest and best award while Chloe Spence was the leading goalscorer kicking nine goals from her 10 matches.

The Swan Districts Youth Girls team ended up finishing the 2022 season in sixth position with a 4-10 record in the Rogers Cup competition.

The wins for the Youth Girls teams came against Subiaco in Round 4, East Perth in Round 6, the Lions again in Round 13 and then the Royals to close the season in Round 17.

Carys D'Addario ended up being the Rogers Cup leading goalkicker with 18 goals for the season from 11 matches including a best of four against Claremont in Round 12.