Each week of the 2026 AFLW season, ESPN's Sarah Burt takes a look at what's making news, raising questions, and catching the eye across the competition.
This week's W Files features a look at the winless Saints and the future of coach Nick Dal Santo, plus a review of the Showdown, and recapping a horror week for injuries to stars.
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Struggling Saints still searching for first win
Undeniably, St Kilda have plenty of legitimate context for their winless season, but heading into Round 9, the question is whether these actually excuse the lack of performance.
The side has now lost all eight games and is the only winless side in the competition this season, after producing just a single point against the Bulldogs on Saturday, the equal-lowest score in AFLW history.
Their injury list is long, relying heavily on young players, and Saturday's loss came after a six-day turnaround and travel from the Gold Coast and then to Ballarat, however, it is hard to argue that these factors would affect other sides this heavily.
Senior coach Nick Dal Santo spoke following their 30-point defeat to the Western Bulldogs, but also acknowledged the most important point:
"We just didn't play very well today, that's just the facts," he said.
"We've got a very young group, we've got an extensive injury list which we're aware of, I think we played our thirty-second player today, there's only thirty on the list ... so that probably shows the challenges that we've had in that space.
"I was disappointed that we weren't able to challenge a little bit more, probably more offensively. I think we're all frustrated, that's now how we planned on today going."
I spoke about them last week and had some quiet confidence that the dominant performance from Jesse Tawhiao-Wardlaw (career-high five goals against Gold Coast), may have marked a turning point, but the fact that they have to rely on a single player also shows a lack of depth.
The crux of the issue is that there aren't enough tangible signs of improvement underneath the poor results; they're not just scoring fewer goals, they're scoring none.
With Dal Santo out of contract at the end of the season, it raises questions on his and the Saint's future.
On Fox Footy's W Debrief on Sunday evening, Code Sports' Lauren Wood nailed it: "Seconds away from being scoreless Kel (fellow panellist Kelly Underwood), I mean, it's easy for us to sit here on the coach and say that we should be past this as a competition, we are 11 seasons in now. Coach Nick Dal Santo was very, very defensive after the game about everything that they've been up against.
"He didn't want those two hours to be plucked out in isolation but the reality is that it is about those two hours on game day.
"It's an incredibly difficult situation they find themselves in and I think there will be pressure come onto Nick as the head coach, that sort of comes with the territory."
Injuries continue to put a dampener on the season
Sometimes being an AFLW fan just straight up breaks your heart.
As I write this, confirmation of Swans ruck Ally Morphett's ACL rupture has just come through, and that's after seeing former North Melbourne captain Emma Kearney helped from the field clutching her hamstring in her 100th game.
Kearney's milestone was soured by the injury, with the 37-year-old acknowledging that hamstring issues have become an unfortunate part of the latter stages of her career.
"It would have been nice to finish on the field, but injuries are a part of footy, and I've had my fair share in the back end of my career," Kearney said.
The triple premiership player will undergo scans to determine the extent of the injury, but remains hopeful of returning before the end of the season.
Dowrick's Showdown domination
Abbey Dowrick has established herself as a Showdown superstar, claiming the medal for best-on- ground for the second consecutive year.
Her teammate and girlfriend Matilda Scholz put it perfectly in a social media post from Port Adelaide FC post match, where the admin asked who deserved a bunch of flowers: "Who do you think deserves the flowers, Abbey Dowrick!!"
Following an impressive performance for the Power in their 14-point win over Adelaide, Dowrick finished with 24 disposals, including 22 contested possessions, and 11 clearances and 13 groundball-gets.
Her contested-possessions tally the equal-highest recorded by an AFLW player this season and a Port Adelaide record. The medal count was particularly tight, with Dowrick polling 12 votes to edge former Crow Ash Woodland by just one, while Shineah Goody and Adelaide's Niamh Kelly finished on three votes each.
A consistent and quiet operator, beware of the Dowrick domination.
My favourite stat of the week
In a shock to absolutely none of us, former league Best and Fairest winner Ebony Marinoff made magic happen in the South Australian Showdown, laying 15 tackles against Port Adelaide. It marked the second time this season that "Noffy" has reached at least 15 tackles, a feat achieved just four times across the competition this year. The three-time premiership player and seven-time All-Australian has built a reputation as one of the AFLW's most dominant tacklers, (1,114 career tackles - 286 more than any other player in competition history, if you don't mind).