Sam Wright Out: Collingwood’s AFLW Mess Just Got Realer
Another coach, another exit interview, another horror season ticked off at Collingwood. Sam Wright confirming he’s leaving after the Essendon game isn’t a shock to anyone who’s been watching this club’s AFLW program limp through the year, but it’s still a genuinely big deal for a competition that needs its foundation clubs firing, not flailing.
This isn’t really about one coach
Let’s get something straight before the hot takes start flying: Sam Wright walking out the door is a symptom, not the disease. You don’t lose a season like the Pies have had because one bloke got his match-ups wrong a few times. This is structural. This is list management, list balance, development pathways, the whole deal. When a club with Collingwood’s resources and supporter base is languishing near the bottom of the ladder for consecutive seasons, the coach cops the headline, but the real questions need to go a lot higher up the food chain.
I’ve said it before on this desk and I’ll say it again — AFLW coaching tenures are genuinely brutal right now. The margin for error is tiny, the list turnover is constant thanks to free agency and delistings, and clubs are still working out how to build genuine depth in a competition that’s still pretty young. Collingwood were premiership contenders not that long ago. That drop-off doesn’t happen by accident.
The on-field stuff has been brutal to watch
No notes needed here, the footy itself has told the story all season. Inside 50 efficiency has been patchy, the midfield brigade has lacked the same bite it had a couple of years back, and too many games have slipped away in the same manner — strong starts, no finish. That’s a coaching and a personnel problem rolled into one, and it’s exactly the kind of pattern that gets a coach’s head on the chopping block even when the issues run deeper than game-day calls.
Wright copped criticism from parts of the fanbase through the year, which is fair enough, that’s footy, but I do think some of it got a bit personal and a bit unfair given the hand he was dealt. You can debate his tactics all day, and plenty of Pies supporters clearly have, but pretending he was the sole reason for a season like this one is letting a lot of other people off the hook pretty easily.
What this means for the players
Spare a thought for the playing group here too, because a coaching change mid-cycle, even one that’s being framed as mutual and amicable, creates genuine uncertainty. Young players trying to find their feet in the system, senior players who’ve seen multiple coaches come and go, all of them now heading into an off-season wondering who’s going to be running the show and what the game plan looks like next year.
That kind of instability is legit tough to play through. I reckon we sometimes underrate how much continuity matters in AFLW specifically, because the programs are still relatively new, the support staff are often stretched thin compared to the men’s side, and players don’t always have the luxury of years and years inside one system to really nail down how a club wants to play. Every reset costs you development time you don’t always get back.
The bigger picture for the competition
Here’s the thing that worries me more than Collingwood specifically — a struggling powerhouse club is bad for the whole competition’s momentum. As someone who’s always banging on about growing the game up here in Queensland and beyond, you want your biggest, most heavily supported clubs performing well and getting attention for the right reasons. Collingwood has one of the biggest memberships bases in the entire competition. When their AFLW program is in disarray, that’s a story that gets outsized coverage, and not the kind that helps sell the product to new fans.
Compare that to what the Lions have built over the journey, not to rub it in, but because it shows what stability and smart list management over multiple seasons can actually produce. It’s not flashy, it’s not always headline grabbing, but it works. Clubs that chop and change constantly rarely get the chance to build that kind of culture, and culture in team sport isn’t some soft, fluffy concept, it’s the difference between winning the close ones and losing them.
What Collingwood needs to actually do
So what’s next for the Pies? A new coach is obviously coming, and there’ll be no shortage of names thrown around once the appointment process kicks off properly. But if Collingwood genuinely want to turn this thing around rather than just hit refresh and hope for the best, they need to look honestly at recruiting, at their development pathways for young talent, and at whether the football department itself has been set up to actually support whoever walks in the door next.
Hiring a new coach and expecting instant transformation without fixing the stuff underneath is how you end up back here again in two years having the exact same conversation with a different name attached to it. The clubs that have genuinely turned things around in this competition have done it through patient list building and clear structures, not through rolling coaches every time results dip.
- A genuine review of list management decisions over the past two to three seasons
- Clarity on the development pathway for emerging talent coming through the academy system
- Stability in the support staff around whoever takes the senior job next
- An honest conversation about whether resources are being allocated appropriately compared to the men’s program
Final word
I don’t think anyone barracking for Collingwood is feeling great about where this season landed, and fair enough too. But the knee-jerk reaction of just wanting a new face in the coach’s box misses the point a bit. Sam Wright leaving might genuinely be the right call for both parties, these things happen and they’re not always anyone’s fault specifically, but it’s what happens in the months after that’ll actually tell us whether this club is serious about getting back to where it was. Watch this space, because AFLW off-seasons move fast and Collingwood have got some serious work to do.
