In the VFLW Grand Final last week, North Melbourne Werribee came from behind and defended their premiership title, defeating Collingwood and meaning both the VFLW and AFLW sides at the club are the reigning premiers.
In the women's competition, overall, one main difference between the way it operates against the men's is that the two leagues don't run simultaneously.
So, players part of the VFLW side are mostly exclusive to that team, and vice versa for the AFLW.
In the AFLW, clubs don't have official "reserves" competitions running alongside the AFLW season (like the VFL/AFL model), which means unselected players can't just run out in a second-tier game every weekend.
To combat this, clubs often organise scrimmages or scratch matches for their non-selected AFLW players, against the unselected players of the other sides.
The game time is shorter and it doesn't fully replicate an AFLW game, to help manage workloads, give injured players a chance to reintroduce themselves to the game, and assist with lower resourced medical and conditioning teams.
There are some AFLW-listed players who have received permission to play in the VFLW, SANFLW, WAFLW, or QAFLW, depending on timing, but since AFLW now runs later in the year, those comps don't always overlap, so in-season, it's mostly the club-organised scrimmages that provide their game exposure.
Former AFLW Swans ruck and now premiership player with North's VFLW side, Kate Reynolds spoke to the issue.
"There's sort of two sides of the coin," Reynolds said.
"For VFLW players, it benefits them as it's an opportunity to be noticed and elevated to AFLW for the draft or before AFLW pre-season.
"For AFLW players it means the gap between selected and non-selected players grows throughout the season, as they don't have a solid competition to go back and play in.
"Especially girls in 'non footy' states that don't have enough teams to scrap together a scrimmage each week, often the club doesn't have funds to fly them to the closest scrimmage.
"I guess the next phase for both parties would be a fully integrated VFL/AFLW squad like the men's, however that comes with significant budget requirements which they just don't have.
"The scrimmage policies have become better, but it's still so odd that you go to play with all other non-selected girls from other teams, although it is good networking amongst clubs."
The VFLW season runs from April to the final weekend of August, with coincided with Round 3 of the AFLW season this year.
Women's football expert and Fox Footy commentator Chyloe Kurdas also believes there are pros and cons to the current setup, noting that the most important consideration is to survey players like Reynolds who have been exposed to both levels of the competition, and scrimmages.
"I think everything is about development still, we still have a really strong need to develop talent and that's not just the talent in the AFL but it's the talent in the AFLW, there are so many wonderful kids coming through," Kurdas said.
"We're really excited by the draft, but it's not just the draft it's the quality of kids coming through in the under eighteen system across the country.
"It's important that there's talk of the balance of how we leverage the assets for existing W players so those that aren't getting selected have got somewhere to play that's meaningful and credible.
"There's that argument around that the State Leagues should be there to develop those players that are at that level so they've got the most opportunity to show what they can do.
"But if AFLW players play in state leagues, the people that might've played a certain position have to play second fiddle to the AFLW players because they're the players being invested in, growing, and developing them so there's some trade-offs there."
The standard number of players on a primary AFLW list is 30, with provision for one or two rookie spots and inactive list replacements, totalliung at most about 32.
Kurdas says there are some positives to the timing of the seasons currently due to this.
"It is quite disruptive in the men's program where there is overlap but I guess the difference is that the women's season is nowhere near as long, so if you look at a women's list of 30 to 35 people, even if you have two or three injuries you really only have a couple of players who end up having to play down," she said.
"There's not a lot of players taking spots from that secondary talent pool each week, which is unlike the men's system where you might have 10 or 15 dropping down to state leagues each week, so that can be more disruptive for that for the rest of the talent."
On the scrimmages which AFLW players currently play, if they are unnamed in the side that week, Kurdas is adamant the most important thing is that they're just playing footy.
"I think we've got a responsibility to provide a space appropriate for them to play in and you've got players flying in from all over the country to scrimmages at the moment, so I know some players fly in from WA for instance, plus a couple of support staff to support the medical etc. and they fly back, that's a big commitment," she said.
"The other thing from the talent development perspective is that if VFLW was to move their season it would remove the opportunity for recruiters, coaches, development coaches to see those other players, so it's a ID process as well for talent who potentially haven't got game time in AFLW."
The jury is still out on what the solution is, but one thing universally agreed on is that players need to be playing footy in an environment that at least replicates a real match day environment.