By Tara Murray
Ray Tadd has spent most of his life around football clubs, but he says taking on the Kyneton women’s coaching role is one of his more challenging roles.
Tadd has played more than 500 games of football and coached senior, junior and masters football.
Having helped out the side last year, Tadd said the timing was right for him to get back into coaching.
Director of Women’s Football Natalie Korinfsky coached the side last year, after they parted ways with their coach during the pre-season.
“I’ve been doing a bit of ruck coaching with the girls,” Tadd said.
“Nat had been talking to me for a couple of years, but it wasn’t right.
“I had a chat with them and how serious they are about their footy. I couldn’t coach if it was going to be a kick and giggle.
“I want to teach them proper football. They said they were in.”
Tadd said because many players hadn’t grown up playing football or were new to the game all together, they were at a disadvantage compared to their male counterparts.
He said working with female footballers also had its positives.
“They don’t have any preconceived ideas about things,” he said.
“They are prepared to learn.”
Tadd said Korinfsky did a fantastic job with the group as a first year coach, with being a playing-coach not the easiest role.
He said numbers on the track were good and they were still looking for more people who might be interested in playing.
“We’ve got about six to seven new girls from the previous season,” he said.
“We’ve had 24 players train at least once and there’s still another eight or nine players who haven’t trained yet, so we’ve got about 30.
Kyneton will again play in the Central Victoria Football League Women’s competition which has expanded to seven teams.
Tadd said they were looking to continue their development, having finished fifth last season with three wins.
He said they had a number of practice matches lined up before the season starts.
“We’re always going to be up against it against some of the Bendigo teams,” he said. “Last season we went from losing by nearly 150 points to losing by 70 to 80 points to some teams.
“We want to keep building the numbers up and keep everyone interested in playing football. “
We want this to be a place that people want to come to and keep developing the culture.” Anyone interested in playing can contact either Nat on 0439 642 192 or Kfnc.womensfootball@gmail.com, or Ray at 0438 274 147.
