Leeton too short on numbers for 2023 women's football season

The club announced in early November they intended to have a team in the 2023 competition, but low numbers forced them to withdraw.

Football operations manager Jamie Broadbent said the decision to withdraw wasn't through lack of trying, but due to low numbers.

"A few of the girls are keen, the biggest problem is a lot of them are 15 or 16 and want to play, but I think it's an over 17s competition, so that's what's stopping us a little bit," Broadbent said.

Looking ahead 12-months, Broadbent said he's still hopeful Leeton will get a team up for the 2024 season, with the club now looking at the establishment of a women's side as a priority.

With a small population, Broadbent said it has been a struggle to find enough senior-aged players.

"We have the Phantom girls (rugby union) and the Greenies girls (rugby league), and a lot of our girls are all playing netball, you're all sort of robbing from the same well all the time," he said.

"But we'll just keep battling on and see what we can do."

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Broadbent said exposing more girls to football will help in getting women into the sport in future years.

"It giving the girls more exposure to the game, to go a bit further, into higher age groups," he said.

The club will also look at bringing a dedicated women's football coordinator onto the committee ahead of the 2024 season.

AFL Riverina community football and competition manager Joel Robinson said the AFL will continue to support Leeton and neighbouring clubs to build towards establishing their women's sides.

Junior pathways into senior football will be a key focus.

"We've got to ensure we're putting things in place in the junior space to ensure that teams in the south west can fulfil a team in the future," Robinson said.

"From what I understand, at their (Leeton) training sessions, they had a lot of the younger girls and lacked some of the older, mature aged women that some of the other clubs have."

"If you look at Wagga, and the youth girls competition, and how much that's grown over the last few years, those players filter into the teams in that region," he said.

All four AFL Riverina clubs that have not yet entered the women's competition have junior clubs in the south west junior football league, which does not currently run a youth girl's division.

Heading into the 2022 season, Wagga Tigers faced the same fate as Leeton. They have again nominated for the 2023 season, and alongside the addition of Temora Kangaroos, help the competition grow to 14 clubs.

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