By Tara Murray
Werribee Centrals is growing its connection between its senior women’s sides and girls teams in Western Football League.
This year the Centurions three junior girls sides will be coached by members of the club’s women’s premiership side from last year.
While they’ve had women involved in coaching the sides, president Kate Eichler said they had never had female head coaches before.
“We have got three girls teams and five senior women who played in last year’s grand final are coaching this year,” she said.
“It’s the first year we’ve had all women coaching the girls’ sides. It is really big for the club as we try and support our junior pathway.
“It has been a conscious effort to get more women involved in coaching in general.”
Eichler said with many mums having never played football before, many aren’t prepared to take on the volunteer coaching roles.
With that in mind, they focused on getting the senior women’s players involved a bit more.
“Last year we got them to come down to training and get to know the players,” she said. “Quite a few put their hands up to coach this year.
“It’s great to be involved in a volunteer role. The girls can now see where they can end up in football.”
Eichler said the senior players had a passion for football and it was nice to see them pass it onto the junior sides, with the players to hopefully progress into the senior ranks in the years to com.
She said they were seeing a lot of good signs early in the pre-season which will only increase as the season starts and progresses.
Lonet Bugeja will coach the under-16 girls, Tayah McFarlane, Jess Spall and Gemma Todd will coach the under-14s and Khyale Forsyth will coach the under-12 girls.
As well as playing in the premiership, Spall shared league best and fairest award.
Eichler said they were hoping this would be the start of bigger involvement between the whole female program.
The women’s side is part of the Centurions junior club, making that connection a bit easier.
“We are really focused on growing the junior girls program,” she said. “We’re really excited about the future and girls footy at Werribee Centrals,” she said.
“We’ve started to have success in previous years. Our under-14 girls team were in a grand final last year.
“It’s exciting to see female football growing in Melbourne’s west.”
