Essendon’s Bess Keaney thought her AFLW dream had handed her by.
It wasn’t till she was 28 that she acquired picked up by Gold Coast in 2021 as a mature-age participant after 5 unsuccessful drafts, half a decade into the AFLW competitors.
Now, she’s one of many Bombers most dependable defenders.
“Every year I used to be within the draft, and it sort of did not occur. I believed it was much less and fewer possible,” Keaney informed ABC Sport on the eve of AFLW finals.
“So to be given the chance to go as much as Gold Coast, we have been going to do something to make it occur … And I would even damaged my leg in 2019. So when that occurred, I used to be like, ‘Oh, this may very well be it. Like, I most likely cannot come again from this’.”
Keaney did come again from the damage and flourished on the Suns, turning into vice-captain in 2022 and taking out the coaches’ award in 2023.
Elizabeth Keaney was missed in 5 drafts, earlier than being taken by the Gold Coast Suns. (Getty Photographs: AFL Images/Daniel Carson)
She then joined Essendon — the membership she grew up supporting — for the 2024 season and have become an integral cog throughout half-back and the wing and helped the membership make finals in simply their third season.
Growth helped to unearth missed expertise
Keaney’s success at Essendon makes a compelling case towards the argument that AFLW expanded too quickly.
In 2020, earlier than the final enlargement, North Melbourne captain and premiership participant Emma Kearney argued towards extra groups getting into the competitors for no less than 5 years because the expertise wasn’t there to help it.
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“We have seen loads of video games which are blowouts. Notably in my convention, the final form of two, three video games we have been capable of beat groups fairly simply, versus final yr we had loads of exhausting video games,” Kearney informed The Age’s Actual Footy podcast.
“It is the truth of the competitors that the expertise’s not there.”
After the league’s maiden season in 2017, a key issue within the AFL Fee’s choice to delay its subsequent enlargement by 12 months was eager to develop the expertise pool first — in addition to easing considerations about its elite gamers being unfold too sparsely throughout the league.
However gamers reminiscent of Keaney and golf equipment like Essendon have been the beneficiaries of recent lists requiring extra gamers throughout the league.
Her teammate Georgia Nanscawen is one other.
Nanscawen is a favorite for the membership’s finest and fairest this yr and got here via the Bombers’ VFLW program after being delisted by North Melbourne on the finish of 2019.
Then there’s North Melbourne’s Ash Riddell, a contender for the league’s W award this yr, who was missed in two drafts earlier than the Kangaroos joined the competitors as an enlargement facet in 2018 and picked her up as a free agent.
“I believe there’s a specific amount of expertise that comes via the beneath 18 pathway annually, and there is clearly a restrict to that,” Keaney stated.
“Positively I believe within the intervals of enlargement we have seen till now, there’s been gamers come via extra mature ages, or possibly simply took a bit of however longer to use their commerce in say the VFL and simply be taught the sport [and had an impact]”.
When Essendon, Hawthorn, Sydney and Port Adelaide got here into the competitors in 2022, 120 new spots turned out there — and current gamers swapping colors to fill these left holes in different sides.
Keaney stated whereas gamers want somebody to consider they’re adequate to draft, it then comes right down to how they apply themselves inside the system.
“The large factor is simply since you get within the door, you’ve got nonetheless acquired to take advantage of that,” Keaney stated.
Changing into a Bomber a ‘pinch-me’ second for lifelong fan
Whereas being an AFL participant remains to be a “pinch-me” second in and of itself, there’s an added ingredient for Keaney being an Essendon participant.
She was 9 years outdated when the boys’s facet gained the 2000 premiership, a day she says is a “core reminiscence” — though jokes loads of her now teammates weren’t even alive but to see it.
Elizabeth Keaney grew up cheering for Essendon. (Getty Photographs: AFL Images/Michael Willson)
“However extra importantly, seeing individuals come right down to video games in Bombers gear, seeking to us and we’re the Bombers,” Keaney stated.
“I believe if I put myself in my nine-year-old footwear, to assume that I might take a look at a lady who was carrying an Essendon jumper and she or he was an elite AFL participant, would have been wonderful.
“And to assume that I am now a kind of individuals is, yeah, that’s pinch-me for positive.”
The now 32-year-old performed her fiftieth recreation towards Carlton, a recreation during which its victory cemented Essendon within the prime eight for his or her second consecutive finals sequence of their third season within the competitors.
They now have the powerful process of going through Fremantle in Perth, a facet they bowed to in spherical one by 43 factors.
And for the finals drought narrative that plagues the boys’s facet? Keaney stated it would not trouble them within the girls’s program.
“I believe within the AFLW workforce, we’re actually forging our personal path,” she stated.
“So, most likely would not assist to play an excessive amount of into these narratives, though clearly successful a ultimate — it would not matter what membership you are at — it is a huge achievement for the membership.”
