Tara Murray
It’s a new era for Kyneton’s women’s football team.
After playing in the Central Victoria Football League women’s competition in recent season, the Tigers are one of six sides in the inaugural Riddell District Football League women’s competition.
Tigers coach Phil Hawkes said before the side’s first game on Friday night against Romsey, that it was an exciting time for the club.
“It’s a new era for the club,” he said. “It’s all pretty exciting and we had our last training session last night [Wednesday night] and had a jumper presentation and named our first side as well.”
Hawkes said many of the side knew players on the other sides, while for others they had been more familiar with those closer to Bendigo.
He said they were keen to face the likes of Romsey, Woodend and Macedon.
“Overall we’re excited to see what happens and how it pans out,” he said.
“There will be the unknown for the first half of the season as we haven’t played them before.
“We’ll take it as it comes each week and then start to look at strategies a bit closer.
“We’ll work with what has worked in the past and make any adjustments we need to.”
Hawkes said the squad is very similar to what they had last season with two or three players leaving, but they also added some new players.
He said they had similar numbers to what they had last season.
Hawkes said the group had plenty of motivation this season to continue to build on what they did last season.
The Tigers were set to play finals for the first time, but other teams had points stripped and given to other sides, which meant the Tigers missed out.
“It was a bitter pill to swallow,” he said. “It was going to be our first finals appearance, but we missed out due to other avenues.
“There’s a bit of a feeling around. What it has done, made the girls more determined to prove that we should have been the case.”
Hawkes said despite being a new competition they had still set high expectations for what they wanted to achieve this season.
“I’ve set a few expectations, mainly from a perspective on how we have been progressing the last couple of seasons in Bendigo.
“Regardless of where the new league sits in the standard we set some expectations that we need to work towards.”
