McClelland Trophy Race Down to Four and It’s Legit Chaos
Footy club culture nerds, this is your moment. The McClelland Trophy – the thing that measures which club is actually the best across both the men’s competition and AFLW combined – has narrowed down to four genuine powerhouses, and the whole thing could swing on a single AFLW semi-final coming up. No notes, this is exactly the kind of storyline the game needs more of.
For those who don’t live and breathe this stuff like I do, the McClelland Trophy isn’t the one you see getting hoisted on telly in September. It’s the quiet achiever of AFL silverware, tallying up ladder position and finals success across men’s and women’s programs to crown the most complete, best-performing club in the whole system. It’s basically the report card for the entire footy department, not just the blokes who get the Sunday footy show coverage.
Why This Trophy Actually Matters
I know there’s footy purists out there who reckon the McClelland Trophy is a bit of a nothing-burger, some admin exercise that doesn’t belong next to a premiership cup. Respectfully, I could not disagree more. In an era where clubs are pouring resources into AFLW programs – some clubs genuinely treat it like a third arm of the organisation now, not an afterthought – this trophy is the one measure that rewards clubs doing it properly across the board.
It’s not just about which club has the best list on a Saturday arvo. It’s about depth, it’s about culture, it’s about whether your footy department is firing on all cylinders from the AFLW list managers right through to the men’s midfield brigade. That is genuinely hard to do well across an entire footy club, and the four clubs still in the mix for this year’s trophy deserve way more attention than they’re getting.
The Final Four
Without getting too deep into the ladder maths (because honestly the exact points system makes my head spin a bit), the race has come down to four clubs who’ve been consistently strong on both fronts this year. We’re talking genuine powerhouse programs – clubs that made serious inroads in the men’s competition deep into finals, and who’ve also built AFLW programs that are legit finals contenders rather than making up the numbers.
That’s the real story here. A few years back you could win this trophy off the strength of your men’s list alone because some AFLW programs were still finding their feet. That window has closed. If your AFLW side is getting bundled out in week one every year, you are not winning this trophy anymore, full stop. The competition has gotten too strong, too deep, and that is an unbelievably good thing for the women’s side of our game.
It All Comes Down to One Semi-Final
Here’s where it gets properly tense. With the men’s ladder locked in and finals results banked, the whole McClelland race is now hinging on one upcoming AFLW semi-final. Whichever club comes out on top of that contest effectively punches their ticket to overall club supremacy, bragging rights and all.
Imagine being an AFLW player walking out knowing your performance that day doesn’t just decide your own finals fate, it decides whether your entire club gets to call itself the best in the comp this year. That’s pressure, that’s drama, that’s exactly the kind of narrative stakes that get casual fans tuning into women’s footy who maybe wouldn’t have bothered otherwise. If you’re not fully invested in this semi, I genuinely don’t know what to tell you.
The ripple effect through the club will be real too. Think about it from a footy department perspective – the men’s coaches, the list management staff, even the marketing and membership teams are going to be glued to this one. A McClelland Trophy win isn’t just a plaque in the trophy cabinet, it’s a selling point for recruitment, for membership drives, for every conversation a club has with the AFL about resourcing. Clubs genuinely want this.
The Brisbane Angle (Obviously)
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t watching this through purely maroon-tinted glasses. The Lions have built something genuinely special on both fronts the past few years, and seeing Queensland footy get recognised properly – not as the little cousin to the Victorian clubs, but as a legit all-round powerhouse – means a lot to those of us who’ve been banging the drum for growing the game up here since forever.
Brisbane fans have had to put up with a lot of
