A new look VU Western Spurs will enter the VFL Women’s competition in 2016, with wholesale pre-season changes sweeping the club.
Rebranding, a huge arrival of new players, a new home at the Henry Turner Reserve and new specialist coaches have all been engineered at the club formerly known as St Albans. The club needs no further motivation than their 2015 stats – no wins, a percentage of less than 13 and finishing “holding the ladder up”, as their state league coach Debbie Lee dryly puts it.
“We’ve built on from last season and the big thing that we’re going to do is continue to build on our defence,” Lee said, entering her second season at the helm of the Spurs.
“We’ve got to win games. If we’re in the state league we’ve got to be respectful of that.”
The Spurs reaped the benefits of being the only VFLM Women’s side from the west during January’s AFL Talent Search, which gave female athletes from different sporting codes the opportunity of playing women’s football at the highest level.
Close to half of the list is comprised of new players, with basketballers like Jess Franke and Alyssa Mifsud from Victoria University joining the club, and transitioning well.
“There’s some great talent that has come through,” Lee said.
“We’ve got Jess Francke who’s a basketballer, she’s tall, she can grab the footy really well.
“We’ve got Ash Gunn, another basketballer, she attended the AFL Talent search and as a result was extended an invitation to the [AFL Victoria Women’s] Academy.
“We’re really excited about the season, we think that with the combination of the new girls and the old girls we’re going to be more competitive than last year.”
In order to shape the values, ethos and attitude of the Spurs leading into the VFL Women’s maiden season, the playing group embarked on a pre-season camp in mid-February.
“With our partnership with the Western Bulldogs and Victoria University, we spent the morning at VU to do some testing with their sports people and also doing some theory,” Lee said.
“Then we moved down to the Bulldogs for an intra-club match.”
The Spurs have two aces up their sleeve in their ongoing partnerships with both the Western Bulldogs and Victoria University. Back in May of last season, Bulldog defender Jordan Roughead was officially signed as the Spurs’ Assistant Coach, a role that has expanded to midfield and ruck coach in 2016. The Spurs have also been able to utilise the Bulldogs’ facilities and staff as well as marketing themselves into a ready-made membership base.
Roughead isn’t the only marquee name in the Spurs’ brains trust: Sam Smits is the 2016 backline coach while Coburg ruckman Ben Sortino will be bringing four years of VFL experience as the Spurs’ forward line coach. Sortino says he’ll be working with his players towards long-term areas of improvement.
“It’ll be about teaching the girls about structure,” Sortino said.
“We want them to understand exactly what our game plan is. We want them to be in sync with our backs, with our midfielders in knowing, ‘This is where I need to be, this is what I need to do.’ Then everything else will fall into place.”
The Spurs will head to Geelong in Round 1.
WEBSITE: www.westernspurs.com.au
FACEBOOK: /WesternSpurs
TWITTER: @vwflspurs