AFLW: Sydney Swans to be without star forward Chloe Molloy for rest of season
The Swans must tackle their finals push without prolific forward Chloe Molloy, who faces surgery after doctors confirmed her season-ending back injury.
Swans co-captain Chloe Molloy has been ruled out for the rest of the AFLW season with a back issue that will require invasive surgery later this week.
Molloy, who missed the majority of last season with an ACL injury, had been one of the Swans’ best players this year with 19 goals to her name in 2025.
However, the 26-year-old has missed Sydney’s past two games as she managed back soreness. There were hopes that the dynamic forward would be available for their must-win match against Essendon on Saturday, but after medical advice, Molloy will go under the knife to fix the issue.
While it is not yet clear the extent of the injury or how long Molloy will be on he sidelines for, Swans coach Scott Gowans conceded it is a bitter blow for his side.
“It’s disappointing, she’s clearly one of our better players,” Gowans said.
“The decision process was more of a medical process. It came back today, and we confirmed that she’ll have surgery on her back. We really won’t know anything more than that until the surgery is done.
“I’ve been told that the surgery is needed … and the surgeon just said he’ll know more after that.
“The good thing is the squad’s healthy, and we won well on the weekend without her. Cynthia (Hamilton) going down as well, but it showed a significant growth in the group. We were able to cope with that, and maybe in the past we haven’t coped as well, being a younger group.
“When your leaders’ not there, a big voice on the field, you lose that bit of footy IQ. But I felt we dealt with it on the weekend, and I know training with the girls … they’re focused to step up and do what’s right for the club.”
It means the Swans are in a similar position to their only other finals berth in 2023, where they finished in the top eight despite suffering several key injuries to players like Ally Morphett and Bec Privitelli later in the season.
Hamilton is unlikely to play this weekend, even though her injury is much less severe than expected. While reigning best-and-fairest winner Sofia Hurley is set to return this week if she gets through training.
Gowans is confident that the increased maturity of the group means they will be able to lift in Molloy’s absence.
But before the Swans can start thinking about finals, they have to take care of business this week against the Bombers.
Sydney has already dropped a couple of games this year that they were expected to win. And with a victory, plus a percentage boost, needed to lock in their top-eight spot, Gowans isn’t taking the Coffs Harbour challenge lightly.
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“I had a go at working (the ladder predictor) out myself and made myself ill,” Gowans said. “The players, we’re just clearly focused on us.
“We’ve got a little bit of a history of dropping games like this, and we did this year with Collingwood and Giants, and no disrespect to them, but from a ladder position where we are versus them, you would say that they’re games we should have done better in.
“It’s something that we just need to develop as a group, to be able to focus on what we need to do. If we do that and we do that well, then the results will just take care of themselves.”
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