The AFL has released the 2026 NAB AFLW season fixture, setting up a 12-round campaign that begins on August 9 and immediately serves up a few matchups worth circling. Collingwood opens against Richmond at Ikon Park on Saturday, August 15, Adelaide faces Sydney at Unley Oval on Sunday, August 16, and the first weeks already hint at a season shaped by new coaches, list turnover and old rivalries.
Adelaide’s first-round meeting with Sydney will be the first under new coach Ryan Davis, and it will come without inaugural star Anne Hatchard for the first time in a round 1 clash against the Swans. That alone gives the Crows a different look in their opening act. Collingwood, meanwhile, starts from a very different place after a 15th-placed finish in 2025 and a busy off-season in which it moved on 11 players, leaving the Magpies to reset quickly against Richmond.
The biggest fixture marker sits in round 6, when Brisbane hosts Adelaide at Brighton Homes Arena on Sunday, September 20. It will be the record 15th time the Lions and Crows have met, in a rivalry that dates back to the very first AFLW Grand Final in 2017 and has become the most embedded in the competition. Brisbane has won 11 of the 14 meetings so far and has taken the last seven against Adelaide, stretching back to 2022 S7.
That history gives the round 6 meeting added weight, but the fixture also hands Brisbane another key home game later in the season, with Carlton due at Brighton Homes Arena in round 12 on Saturday, October 31. Carlton beat Brisbane on the Lions’ home deck in last year’s meeting, so the rematch arrives with a recent reference point and a chance for Brisbane to answer back in front of its own supporters.
Essendon’s schedule also carries a clear edge of intrigue. The Bombers play Gold Coast at Windy Hill in round 6 as they continue to chase a first final in the AFLW competition, a milestone that remains out of reach. For a club still trying to turn progress into something more concrete, the fixture at least gives it a home date in a round where the pressure starts to build across the competition.
The release lands with the season still months away, but the outline is already clear. Adelaide enters a new era under Davis, Collingwood is asking a heavily changed list to respond fast, Brisbane remains the benchmark in the rivalry that has defined much of the league’s early history, and Essendon is still trying to break through. The first whistle comes on August 9, but the storylines are already set.
