Finnis said the AFL was stunting the club's progress by denying it an AFLW side next season. "Our advisory group has formed the view that the longer it takes us to join the competition, the further away we are from a premiership," said Finnis, "and that the AFL should act sooner rather than later."

Finnis added that by sooner he meant next season, and that he planned to meet Geelong to look at list-creation rules with concessions for the new clubs, in the spirit of allowing the two teams the benefits as "expansion" clubs.

And the Saints have moved to further lobby head office by staging a women's exhibition game at Etihad Stadium next month as a curtain-raiser to the club's round-five clash with Geelong. On the eve of unveiling plans for their new home at Moorabbin, where St Kilda will house the St Kilda City Sharks, Finnis said the exhibition game would feature a Saints women's side against a combined Australian Defence forces team.

Brian Cook and his chairman Colin Carter late last month hosted Simone Wilkie at Simonds Stadium and worked to persuade the commissioner, who chairs the AFLW advisory board, that the Cats would lose local talent. The Geelong view is they committed to developing female talent over the past 12 months and could now lose that talent if they are denied access to the competition for another year.

The Cats share the view that AFL bosses, now determined to stick with eight teams next season in a bid to improve the playing standard of the fledgling competition, have broken their original undertaking they could field a team by year two – an undertaking that saw the club heavily invest in women's facilities at its home ground.