GWS Giants will go to work over the off-season to try and fix the contested ball-winning issues that plagued the orange team throughout the 2025 AFL Women’s season. Coach Cam Bernasconi said it was not just the players, but coaching staff as well who would dig deep to find some solutions in the wake of a 10th defeat from 12 games over the weekend.

The latest loss was a hefty 57-point defeat at the hands of Port Adelaide at Henson Park, which came off the back of a 46-point loss to Carlton the week before where the Giants trailed by 65 points midway through the third term. Bernasconi said it was to be expected with such a young group, but still not acceptable.

“I just think our inability to play four quarters and I just think around the contest over the last two weeks especially we’ve just fallen away and that’s going to happen with a younger group that’s only done one or two preseasons,” he said.

“I just think physically we’ve struggled around contest and clearance for parts of the year. “But the last few weeks and today the girls looked pretty cooked. “A lot to like again the way we had moments of the game but pretty disappointing and I feel for the girls to not have a better result than that today.”

From the start of the season it was always going to be an almighty task to try and cover the loss of contested ball-winning specialist Alyce Parker who went down with a season-ending foot injury. She, along with Alicia Eva (season) and a sore Zarlie Goldsworthy (ankle) limped to the finish the line.

Bernasconi said there were a “few elements” that would be required to fixing the contested ball-winning issue and though Parker would be essentially “a recruit” and one of the best “contested players in the competition”, there still needed to be further internal improvement.

“There’s going to be a coaching element, that’s probably the way that we coach and value stoppage and contest a little bit more,” Bernasconi said. “We’ve got to spend some more around stoppage and especially centre bounce.

“So there’s an element with the way that we coach it, big element is it’s a young group to do another full preseason in the gym and getting stronger around the ball because I don’t think a lot of it’s the method, it;s just the one-on-one loss so that will come through another strong preseason, and then the big one’s recruitment too. “We just need to recruit some players in to help that.”

While there were no shortage of negatives to take away from the season, Bernasconi said there were definitely shining lights and positives to come out of the year, particularly in finding replacements for Parker.

“I think with young players comes inconsistency because its the mindset and the physical component and I think the growth in some of our young players around the ball has certainly improve,” he said. “Because we have struggled in there we’ve found Brodee Mowbray a role in there.

“Even like Zarlie Goldsworthy, she can play on-ball and have high minutes when she probably would have played more forward if Alyce Parker was there, so there’s been positives in the sense around that, but we probably need to look into just how we get better first possession through some ruck education and inside mid work.”