AFLW: Tigers make big play to lure Katie Brennan
Richmond have launched an audacious bid to lure Western Bulldogs co-captain Katie Brennan to Punt Road for the 2020 AFLW season with the star forward yet to indicate to the Dogs whether she will move.
The Tigers, along with fellow expansion clubs St Kilda, West Coast and Gold Coast, presented to the AFL on Wednesday with lists of their player targets ahead of their entry into the national women’s competition next year.
Along with outgoing Brisbane Lions tall Sabrina Frederick-Traub, it’s understood Richmond are making a major play to lure Brennan, who has been the face of the Dogs across the first three AFLW seasons.
Players targeted by the expansion clubs have the option of recommitting to their current clubs or joining one of the new sides when the AFLW sign-and-trade period opens on Monday. The four new AFLW clubs are able to sign up to 12 players during the period, which runs until Monday, April 15.
The six existing Victorian clubs - Collingwood, Carlton, Melbourne, North Melbourne, the Bulldogs and Geelong - can lose a maximum of four players each under the expansion club scheme, as can Adelaide and Greater Western Sydney. Fremantle and the Brisbane Lions, meanwhile, are allowed to lose up to eight players with teams in their states coming into the competition next season.
The Saints are believed to have made strong plays for Melbourne pair Karen Paxman and Lauren Pearce however the All-Australian pair are expected to remain with the Demons.
Frederick-Traub is tipped by rival clubs to land at the Tigers however the situation is complicated by rules which mean Gold Coast-bound Lions are prioritised in the list of Lions departees. Essentially if eight Lions walk to the Suns, any other players looking to leave Brisbane would need to get to other clubs via a trade or the draft, rather than via the expansion scheme.
Queenslander Brennan, 26, joined the Bulldogs ahead of the first AFLW season as a marquee player and was named the club’s first AFLW captain.
After an injury-interrupted first season the forward led the Dogs to the 2018 AFLW grand final only to be cruelly suspended for the decider against the Brisbane Lions because of a dangerous tackle laid on Melbourne’s Harriet Cordner.
Brennan decided to take the case to the Australian Human Rights Commission on the grounds that the AFLW match review system was discriminatory as it meant women would be suspended for offences that men would not be.
She ultimately dropped the matter after the AFL agreed to change its rules to ensure greater consistency between men’s and women’s football. While suspended for the game, Brennan still held aloft the premiership cup alongside stand-in skipper Ellie Blackburn, who was this year appointed permanent co-captain with Brennan.
Dual All-Australian Frederick-Traub last month quit her job at AFL Queensland before announcing she would leave the Lions to move to Victoria.
The Lions lost a heap of players to the Kangaroos when they entered the competition.
If Brennan departs to Richmond it would be the second time in as many years the Bulldogs have lost one of their big names after Emma Kearney headed to North last season.