Gungahlin United NPLW head coach Diego Iglesias believes a focus on development and culture across all age grades has put United’s women’s program in a strong position to begin 2019.

Rather than prioritizing first team success only, Iglesias has fostered a positive culture and involvement of his seniors within the club to provide a pathway and give young players the best chance of success.

His side missed finals by the slimmest of margins to a fast-finishing Canberra Olympic side in 2018, but said he believes the team is in a stronger position to succeed this season.

“I certainly think that we are in a stronger position this year,” he said last week.

“Last year we lacked depth across the club, we were going through a period of change and last year was the first phase of that.”

“The plan has been to improve the depth and while I was happy with the 1^st grade team last year, I needed to improve the depth behind them which we have done.

“We are not completely there yet but we are in a strong position, so I am expecting better things from the group this year.”

There have been only minor changes within the first-grade team at Gungahlin, with a few additions and a few losses, but most of the change has been in the Reserves where Iglesias has bolstered the numbers and created a squad that can feed into first grade.

The head coach avoided shopping around excessively for players to bring into his squad, preferring largely to promote from within and show juniors there is a pathway ahead of them.

“The vast majority of our juniors are Gungahlin girls, we have a good splattering of Gungahlin girls through the senior squad and that’s something that we are very much focused on,” he said.

“We are not going to a transfer market to find players, our goal is to identify players within our own system and develop them, and that is something we are very much doing now.

“Giving the young girls a chance, we are quite a young squad, but if you don’t give them the chance to develop and learn in a competitive environment then you’ll never know.”

While the first-grade squad at Gungahlin obviously have a role to play on the field, Iglesias has made sure that they are aware of the impact that they can and do have off it.

The NPLW program had a combined pre-season to keep everyone together, and the senior group attended the club’s NPLW launch last week to help present playing kits to younger grades and speak to them about their Football and they are expected to be around all through the season.

“Its very much a community at Gungahlin,” Iglesias said.

“We get involved with Saturday community junior girls, we’ve got our own junior competitions within the club.

“My girls attend, they lead some of those sessions and I’ve made it very clear to my team that they’re expected to be around our club house every weekend.”

On the competitive front, Iglesias believes the introduction of Wagga City Wanderers will not only be good for the competition but sees the road trip as a useful tool for team building as well.

“It’s something they will have to adapt to, and I think they’ll enjoy it,” he said.

“We went and played in Griffith a couple of weeks ago, had a run with the Wagga girls and a Griffith team as well.”

“We took 30 or so girls away, they enjoyed it and got a taste of what is to come.”

“Would they enjoy it every week?,” Iglesias asked with a grin.

“No, I’ll be honest, but I think a proper away trip a couple of times a year is very good for the team.”

Iglesias and his Gungahlin side will enjoy an extra week of rest with a round one bye this weekend, before facing Tuggeranong United at Greenway Enclosed the following Sunday.