The 2017 Swisse Wellness VFL Women's season is now only one day away.
Callum O'Connor completes his season preview series with a look at the Grand Final rematch, before Darebin and Melbourne Uni meet in Round 1.
DAREBIN
Coach: Jane Lange (2nd year)
2016 finish: Premiers, 18-0
2016 Leading goalkicker: Katie Brennan – 84 goals
2016 Best & Fairest: Daisy Pearce
AFLW players on list: 15
For nearly ten years, the Darebin Falcons have been the benchmark for women’s football in Victoria.
But 2017 is a different landscape. AFL Women’s has moved the goalposts ever so slightly. Many of the best players in Swisse Wellness VFL Women’s will be carrying niggles from twelve straight months of virtually unabated football with their playing instructions also restricting their availability. Then there is the wear and tear of Father Time – the core of the Falcons’ squad is one of the most long-lived in VFL Women’s. While no one has ever questioned either the skill or the competitive fire of the likes of Daisy Pearce, Katie Brennan, Melissa Hickey and Karen Paxman, years of maintaining elite performance while defending the fort will one day take its toll on body and mind.
For senior coach Jane Lange, the levelling of the VFL Women’s playing field in 2017 is a handbrake for the expectation under which Darebin normally conduct their pre-season because the challenge is “for us and for everyone”.
“It’s going to be a big challenge this year. The competition is going to be the most even it has been,” says Lange. “With injuries and AFL clubs giving us what they expect for number of games played, the competition will really thrive.”
16 Falcons played in the inaugural AFLW season and they more than lived up to the hype their club’s reputation bestowed upon them: two were named captains, two won their club’s inaugural Best & Fairest Award and six were All-Australian selections. Darebin captain Pearce even began writing a column in The Age and can now be seen on Channel 7’s football coverage. Memorably, the most famous female footballer in Australia made a point that “given AFLW is our new zenith, it comes as no surprise that my devotion has shifted... it just makes for an interesting time when, due to the current format, we all return to our formative clubs for VFL football during the traditional winter season.”
Does that mean that Lange’s team will be playing with one eye on their AFLW careers? Not a chance.
“The feeling around the club is the same – they’re back, they’re Falcons. Towards the end of the season of AFLW, they were straight on the phone to me saying, ‘I can’t wait to be back, I’ve missed it, I’ve missed the crew, I’ve missed filling up drink bottles and it being real’,” says Lange. “Those who did play AFL but who have been a part of our premiership sides of the last four or five years come back to a club that has a good core group and a good core group of new players.”
Lange hung up the boots in the aftermath of Darebin’s 12-point premiership victory over Melbourne Uni, the Falcons’ fourth consecutive and their eighth in ten years. She will probably be the last ever VFL Women’s playing coach. It’s not the only major development for Lange ahead of the 2017 season – her position as forward coach at Carlton has given her new scope at Darebin.
“From simple stuff to drills to how I look at footage and how it can improve individual and team performance there’s a whole range of things that I’ll be able to bring back to here. I felt quite good that a lot of the things we spoke about in our review times we had already started to do here. So as well as a huge learning experience, I got a lot of affirmation that we are on the right track.
“My first goal is to get a unit that functions together cohesively. The challenge for me isn’t about wins and losses, it’s about whether I can create a unit that functions in a way that we’re proud to say is how we play at Darebin.”
Injuries, the new AFLW competition and the increased strengths of their rivals are all factors that have conspired against Lange’s side during pre-season. But once the siren sounds and Round 1 is underway, that will all become background noise: the Darebin Falcons will still be the team to beat.
CLICK HERE for the 2017 team lists
CLICK HERE for the updated 2017 fixture
Coach: Andrew Jago (2nd year)
2016 finish: Runners-up, 13-4-1
2016 Leading goalkicker: Jessica Anderson – 32 goals
2016 Best & Fairest: Emma Kearney
AFLW players on list: 17
The times, they are a changing. The history making 2017 AFLW season may be in the rear-view mirror but its ripples are still being felt across the country and particularly at Melbourne Uni.
Coach Andrew Jago could well sit back in pride at what his players achieved in front of a national audience. Key defender Nicola Stevens won Collingwood’s Best & Fairest, winger Kaitlyn Ashmore and co-captains Ellie Blackburn and Emma Kearney polled in the top five at the AFLW Best & Fairest, and Catherine Phillips – the Ultimate Frisbee recruit who became a regular contributor at Swisse Wellness VFL Women’s level following the faith Jago invested in her – finished eighth in Melbourne’s Best & Fairest.
“We’ve spent a lot of time talking to the girls since they got back about trying to ‘recreate’ Melbourne Uni,” says Jago, who is entering his third season at the helm. “We had to get everybody to start thinking our way again. So there’s a lot of enthusiasm amongst the group because they’ve come back invigorated, they’ve come back refreshed and the new girls know how they’ve got to work if they want to get to AFL.”
The Mugars had 18 AFLW players recruited across seven teams but that glowing endorsement of their list’s strength has turned into something else: between the burdens of expectation, fatigue and injury, Melbourne Uni will hit the new season under more pressure than most.
The AFLW season took its toll on Melbourne Uni; defender Nicole Hildebrand has opted to stay in Queensland for the state season and ruck Alicia Janz has returned home to Western Australia after transferring across the country as a top-up pick for Fremantle. Forward Louise Stephenson struggled through injury at GWS and foot-soldier Bec Goring has moved to Geelong, another significant blow to their defence.
The other side of the coin is their acquisition of AFLW players like Carlton’s Kate Shierlaw with old hands Lauren Spark and Alex Gogoz [VU1] returning after playing with the Bulldogs. With Shierlaw and Spark set to help out Catherine O’Bryan in the ruck, it will be a difficult ruck division to beat this season.
As with every VFL Women’s coach, Jago is presented with the conundrum of balancing the possible contributions of the new tactics absorbed by his AFLW players with the maintenance of his own vision.
“You’re a fool if you don’t learn from what other coaches are putting out there,” says Jago. “We watched the AFL season and learnt a few things from that and we’ve put our twist on it.”
After finishing the 2016 season in third position, the Mugars muscled their way through to the inaugural Swisse Wellness VFL Women’s Grand Final before falling 12 points short of a boilover premiership in against Darebin.
Can they go to the next level in 2017? First things first is their consistency, as Jago admits his side has “still too big a gap between our best and worst”.
“Our aim at the start of every season is development. Our aim would be to push [AFLW recruits] to 25, 26. That’s my responsibility to the girls, to develop them to the point where more of them have got the opportunity to play AFL.”
CLICK HERE for the 2017 team lists
CLICK HERE for the updated 2017 fixture
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Last Modified on 05/05/2017 17:18
