hen Carlton’s Lucy McEvoy kicked a goal late in the fourth quarter on Sunday afternoon against the Brisbane Lions, she, along with the rest of the AFLW community, had no idea it would be the last goal of the season. The 2020 season is officially over after a tumultuous and confusing fortnight. Late on Sunday afternoon the AFL chief executive, Gillon McLachlan, announced that the season would conclude immediately and that no premiership would be awarded. McLachlan cited the conference system and the unfinished finals series as influences on the decision not to award a premiership. Instead, the 2020 season will come with an asterisk. Season not completed. Premiership not awarded. It is the latest in a string of blows for the competition and the league as the impact of the Covid-19 crisis deepens. In round six the AFL closed all AFLW games to the public. Matches were played in front of empty grandstands. The hill at Whitten Oval was bare. The grassy knoll at Moorabbin, which had been heaving with people in round one, only a few short weeks earlier, was deserted. Only days after that unsettling round wrapped up, confusion gripped the clubs as the AFL announced that the AFLW season would be cut short with the final two home-and-away rounds abandoned in favour of starting the finals series early. At the Holden Centre, as the Magpies watched this unfold, they were informed, incorrectly, that only the top two teams would go through to the finals, meaning their season was over. Tears were shed as the players lamented their missed opportunities. In Brisbane, the Lions’ training was interrupted and the team were called together only to be told that the club didn’t know if they were playing or who they were playing. All of this played out via the club’s respective social media accounts on Twitter and Instagram, meaning fans felt some of the confusion and distress too. When it was finally confirmed late on Wednesday night that the top four teams of each conference would go through to the finals – an increase from the original plans for the season of the top three teams from each conference – the lasting feeling was of an organisation struggling to keep up with what is and continues to be an unprecedented situation. That feeling never really went away. McLachlan said on Wednesday night that the league was operating on “clear instructions” from the government that “all parts of society need to keep moving forward and we simply cannot stand still” and so the show would roll on, just in a very different outfit. It seemed an incredible decision given the global situation and the choices made by other major sporting organisations to postpone or cancel their seasons. Advice from health professionals pushed for social distancing. How exactly do you do that on a footy field? The AFL’s decision on Sunday came not long after the Victorian state government announced it would implement a shutdown of all non-essential activity across the state. New South Wales and ACT will do the same. The Western Australian government announced it would follow Tasmania’s lead and close its borders to interstate travel and impose a 14-day period of self-isolation for any arrivals. South Australia and the Northern Territory will also close their borders. While plenty of questions will be asked about the decision to cancel instead of postpone the season – and rightly so – operating a national sporting competition in such an environment was simply untenable. More to the point, it was unsafe. Frankly, it was unsafe last week and the week before that too. Our lives are changing rapidly right now. Any sense of normalcy for many of us is long gone and we’re left with something that feels jagged and unsteady. For AFLW fans and no doubt players and coaches too, the season offered something of that normality over the past few weeks; a short respite from the wider world and its troubles. Its loss will be felt hard right now by that dedicated community of fans that has invested heavily in the league, its teams and players for the past four years. In an ideal world, next weekend should be round eight of the AFLW season. We should be preparing for an exciting finals series. We should be dreaming of breaking the incredible record set last year at Adelaide Oval. But none of that will happen. As inevitable as the announcement on Sunday afternoon was, it doesn’t make it any less upsetting. An asterisk may mark this season and the loss of something valued and loved will be keenly felt. But there is hope this is just for now and that in the months to come normality will return; and that this season will be an outlier in what will become a long and fascinating history of the AFLW.