Lancefield’s inaugural women’s program is building as is the anticipation of its first senior game in the Riddell District Football League being just weeks away.
Former assistant coach for Collingwood’s AFLW team and development coach at Greater Western Sydney Chris Clifton was named coach back in November and has been loving his time in the role.
“We’re progressing really well,” he said. “We’re in week seven of pre-season and the changes we’ve seen from the girls that first started the game, that had never played Aussie Rules before to where their skill sets are at now is amazing.
“The growth and development of the group and the culture is building. We’re in a really good position.
“It’s a new program for the club, we’re steadily growing each week with numbers that turn up. A lot of our junior and youth girls have now integrated into the program as well.”
The Tigers hoped of having a team last season but were unable to get the numbers, this year Clifton said they won’t have the same issue.
“Including some of our junior youth girls that we’re expecting to play at senior level, we’ve got a steady group of 15 to 20 at training, so we feel that we’re going to have enough numbers to start the season off which is fantastic for us and the community,” he said.
“We have a practice match with a bit of game sim and match sim lined up with Wallan who is also a fairly new team that’s started over the last couple of years. So they understand the journey we’re on, and where we’re starting from.”
Starting the program from the ground up was never going to be an easy process for the club, yet Clifton said an important pillar it had to get right was the culture of the group.
He said the culture that has been created and is still building has been the glue within the group.
“Probably 50 per cent of our team is brand new to the game,” he said. “We’ve got a range of players from what I would call top-end talent to beginners of the sport, so it’s a really diverse group of people and what I think joins everyone together is the culture that everyone’s creating.
“We want to be known as a club that’s open to anyone to come and play. Early in the piece we got together and established a set of values for the club and some action words that we’ll be known by going forward.
“Myself and Tim (Bannan, men’s senior coach) chat regularly, we integrate as much as we can, we’re not far off announcing our leadership groups and we plan to do that together as a club. We want to show the league and the communities that surround us that we’re a united front.”
All players are welcome to come to the Tigers’ training sessions, held on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6.30pm at Lancefield Park.
