‘Marrickville isn’t western Sydney’: Calls for AFLW Giants to return to the west

This Saturday, western Sydney’s AFLW team, the GWS Giants, will kick off their 2025 season with a home game in Canberra. Two weeks later, the club will play another home game, at Henson Park in Marrickville.

In case you were uncertain: no, neither of these “home” grounds are in western Sydney.

It is the second year in a row that the AFLW fixture has skipped Sydney’s western suburbs, a decision local clubs fear could have an impact on the number of girls aspiring to play professionally, as the mayor of the region’s biggest council calls for the club to return to its roots.

“The Giants are a western Sydney club. They need to be in western Sydney,” Blacktown Mayor Brad Bunting said.

“Marrickville isn’t western Sydney.”

For many years, GWS played games at Blacktown International Sports Park, a purpose-built ground that opened in 2009 and features grandstand seating for 2500 people. The Giants’ men’s team also played at the facility, which is owned by Blacktown City Council and managed by Blacktown Venue Management Ltd, before they moved to Sydney Olympic Park.

But in 2024, Blacktown International Sports Park disappeared from the Giants’ AFLW fixture list.

Giants AFLW executive general manager Alison Zell said the Blacktown facility remained vital to the club (an AFLW practice match was played there earlier this month) but availability issues with the Blacktown ground, which it shares with Cricket NSW, and a lack of other facilities had led to western Sydney being excluded from the 2024 and 2025 fixtures.

Zell said the club was “absolutely” committed to western Sydney, but she stressed how important the AFLW team was for Canberra and Greater Sydney, given the Sydney Swans had not joined the AFLW until 2022, while the Giants were one of the code’s inaugural clubs in 2017.

“We’re obviously the team for western Sydney, but I think particularly in the ‘W’ space, because we were the first team in Sydney … we really were born out of being the team for all of NSW and the ACT,” she said.

“So, we were really happy to take our games to wherever we could to really grow the game.”

The power of sport

Sydney’s western suburbs are sports mad: for four years now, hundreds of Penrith Panthers fans have flocked to the local leagues club to celebrate the team’s grand final wins. When Matildas mania broke out in 2023 during the Women’s World Cup, Parramatta Square turned into a live site to host thousands of western Sydney supporters.

Girls’ soccer enrolments increased following the Matildas’ success, and although the GWS Giants AFLW team are yet to have their major sporting moment, the impact the sport can have on young girls in western Sydney is undeniable, said Western Sydney University health and physical education associate professor Emma George.

“[Western Sydney] seems like a great place to be trying to establish a team and to really try to build that fan engagement network,” she said.

“But when you’re not playing any local fixtures, it means that fewer girls are able to see AFL in action, which then means that they’re not … seeing those role models, and potentially not aspiring to participate in AFL or go into careers in AFL.”

That struggle is already being reflected at a grassroots level in western Sydney: some clubs have been forced to form alliances with others due to declining enrolments and others have closed their doors or been unable to field AFL teams.

Bunting, who wants the GWS Giants to return to his council electorate of Blacktown, said western Sydney AFLW games could play a significant role in increasing local club numbers, especially for girls.

“I think AFL still in Blacktown is struggling to get good numbers. If we had a home side that was calling Blacktown home, I definitely think it would encourage more people to take it up,” he said.

“[It] definitely would bring back, I think, a lot more grassroots sport.”

Many feel the locations for the 2025 women’s competition act as a barrier for western Sydney fans, with a costly and long commute deterring fans from showing up and supporting the club at games.

“If you’re coming from Penrith or Blacktown, if you drive in, then you’ve obviously got the tolls on the M4 and then a cost to park your car there and then drive it back, and the fuel used, fuel and time, which obviously can get costly,” said one former representative for a local western Sydney club, who spoke under the condition of anonymity to protect relationships with the AFL.

In July, The Age reported the women’s competition, which has now entered its 10th season, faces diminishing TV audiences and crowd numbers. Data compiled by Austadiums revealed the number of attendees at the two Blacktown AFLW games in 2023 was 1051 and 927, the lowest crowd numbers recorded that season.

Zell said the Giants always knew building up AFL in western Sydney, considered by many to be the heartland of rugby league, was going to be a “generational project”. But while western Sydney may be missed from this year’s AFLW fixtures, the Giants still remain active outside of game day in the west.

Community engagement programs, such as sports clinics for girls and AFLW players visiting western Sydney clubs, are helping to build up the sport in the western suburbs, Zell says. A female academy, established in 2020, is also seeking to develop further talent.

“I think [community engagement] is really important for us as a club, and it’s something that the players take to heart,” she said.

“Particularly in ‘W’ where we know the competition is not as advanced, not as historic as AFL, so the players are really invested in being able to grow the game themselves and be part of that.”

The Sydney Morning Herald has opened a bureau in the heart of Parramatta. Email parramatta@smh.com.au with news tips.