I am a midwife in another life, which means I wear a sign on my back that says "tell me your labour story". I would estimate that the ratio of negative stories to positive is about 4:1. If not a horror story, it will be a fearful question, prefaced with some freak incident that happened to a friend of a friend. When I catch up with old Darebin teammates and talk about grand finals we played in, it is the one we lost in 2013, having been undefeated from round two onwards, that recurs. We find it hard to distinguish between successful grand finals, but can remember specific passages of play in that one if they happened yesterday. I have since investigated further, and apparently it's a scientifically proven thing. Some people do have a more positive outlook than others, but almost everyone remembers negative things more strongly. Evidently, positive and negative events are processed in different hemispheres of the brain. I don't fully understand the "brain lateralisation" theory but I gather that the right hemisphere, where negative experiences and emotions are handled, operates in a way that forces us to process them more thoroughly and analytically. Our brains make us ruminate longer than when we handle positive emotions. Maybe the brain lateralisation phenomenon explains why, that after one round of the second AFLW season, we are bogged down talking about how one game was highly defensive and low scoring.

Largely as a reaction to the Carlton v Collingwood match last Friday night the AFL has issued a formal reminder to coaches and players about our responsibility to approach the game in a way that makes it as entertaining as possible. I have no problem with the intent of the AFL's formal directive on anti-congestion. I understand that a highly engaged viewership is integral to the sustainability of any sporting competition let alone a start-up like ours. The disappointing thing for me is that it has hijacked the entire conversation about AFLW and left the impression that it is broken and requires fixing. We could be talking about the fact that 25 per cent more goals were kicked this year than last year in the opening round. We could be celebrating because three games weren't decided until the dying stages. We could be marvelling at the impressive debuts of Isabel Huntington and Monique Conti (Western Bulldogs) and Chloe Molloy (Collingwood). When you're a highly competitive athlete who dedicates most of your waking hours to being the best you can and have spent a lifetime fighting for these opportunities, anything that raises doubts of the legitimacy of this competition is disenchanting. Suggestions that anti-congestion guidelines water down the validity of AFLW go straight to the heart. I accept we have a responsibility to entertain. But the way this week has played out will only make it harder to manage the expectations of the Australian public because it endorses the perception that we are failing in our endeavours to make this game a perfect and precise equivalent of the AFL.

The fact is that AFLW is 12months old and we've played eight games. Nearly a quarter of players who took the field last weekend were making their AFL debuts, nearly half have played the sport for less than three years, and six were playing their first competitive game. The one thing that will most significantly impact congestion in AFLW can't be engineered: time. Not years, although the competition will be unrecognisable in five years, cross-coders will barely exist and players like me won't get a kick because lists will be filled by players who have been properly groomed for an elite competition via adequately resourced talent programs. I mean time as in weeks. As it did last season, and in most AFL seasons, the skill level will increase as the season wears on. Not many sporting teams reach their full potential in the first week of competition. Regardless of how hard you train in pre-season, it always takes a game or two to adjust to the pace of a competition game. Half-way through the first quarter, your lungs are on fire, legs already paralysed by lactic acid. Doubts creep in. "Did I do enough training in pre-season??" Intuition becomes stifled, decision-making laboured. And you are still trying to implement new strategies and learn to play with new teammates. In the AFL, they get a period of grace called the JLT Series. For the Carlton and Collingwood players last Friday night who were the catalyst for all this criticism and the AFL's response, there was little grace. AFLW clubs have 2 months of part-time pre-season training, one practice match and suddenly they're on centre stage, competing not only for the ball, a win and their spot in the team, but seemingly for the worth of women's football.

The build-up to that first game made it like a final. Rarely is the AFL grand final the best, most skilful match of the season. Does that make it less entertaining? I'd argue not. Brain lateralisation makes us want to deliberate on the areas where AFLW can improve. Be patient and trust that players, coaches and clubs are working overtime on that. Many of us have left our jobs, we're training harder than ever and are giving back to the game and the next generation. It will, and is, improving quickly. Loading Your job as a spectator and fan in the meantime is to ask yourself why it is that you watch and love sport in the first place. Are you captivated by a match because the scoreboard ticks over steadily or are you engrossed by the contest, the passion and the unpredictability? Try not to lose sight of how entertaining AFLW, in all its rawness and imperfection, is right now.