Geelong faces a challenging season in 2016.
The 2015 Division 1 finalists know it. In fact, senior coach Steve Janssen is even brave enough to candidly admit it.
“We’re not silly enough to think that we’re going to play finals,” Janssen said.
“But we really want to be competitive and play against the best and that’s the best way for us to learn.”
It is not to say the Magpies will be the VFL Women’s inaugural whipping team. Janssen, who is in his third season of coaching women’s football and fifteenth overall, points to their successful pre-season recruitment that has come on the back of the esteem of elevation to the new state league competition. Geelong may just surprise the teams who thought they had their measure from last season.
“Since we’ve come up to the state league, we’ve had people actually ringing us,” Janssen said.
“Taylah Gordon has come over from South Australia just wanting to play the highest standard of footy she can play. Geelong was the best choice for her – living in Geelong is heaps cheaper than living in Melbourne, so that was probably the difference for her.
“She’s fitted in really well and she looks quite good for us too.”
Geelong finished third in Division 1 in 2015 (under the name North Geelong, from which they have now distinguished themselves). Their combination of new talent and a hardened group of players who have been together for years could give them a leg-up in the new season. Captain and assistant coach Shannon Knox says that the competitive spirit of her playing group has been burning all throughout the pre-season.
“We had a practice match and we had a bit of a discussion in the huddle about what we want to achieve,” Knox said.
“We’re not going to go into any game thinking we’re going to lose; we’re going to give it all we’ve got.
“We’re a very, very determined group of individuals. We won’t go down without a fight at all. All of us are in this together and we’ll be in it until the end.”
Whilst success in 2016 will not come easy to Geelong – or, indeed, any of the four clubs rising from Division 1 to VFL Women’s – the pre-season recruitment of players from the Ballarat area will only bolster the foundation that the Magpies have been growing over the past seasons. The development of their Youth Girls is building the core of a future successful team.
Four of Geelong’s 2015 Youth Girls have reached the senior list for this season: expect to see Temikka Beeston, Cheryl and Lucy Degroot and Lily Mithen (who starred for Geelong /Western Jets in the recent Youth Girls Academy Challenge) playing in state league in the 2016 season. Jansen says their participation in senior football is not merely an indication of Geelong’s ability to develop juniors into talented players, but shows that the determination to succeed within his team’s culture: all four had the option of staying in Youth Girls but opted to challenge themselves by playing in the new VFL Women’s competition in 2016.
Geelong opens the season at home to VU Western Spurs.
By Callum O'Connor
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