Christies Beach to move women’s team from Adelaide Footy League to Southern Football League in 2020
The Adelaide Footy League will lose Christies Beach after the Saints decided to join its men’s counterpart in the southern competition.
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Christies Beach will move its women’s team to the Southern Football League competition next season in a bid to boost player numbers and consolidate the club.
The Saints’ women’s team had featured in the Adelaide Footy League since the side’s inception in 2016 – before the SFLW was established.
They claimed the division two flag the following year and were then promoted to the top tier for the past two campaigns.
But the team failed to win a game this year with players lining up in the SANFLW and those in state programs unavailable at different times of the season.
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Christies Beach president Paul Daly said the time was right to move to the SFLW and would give the club a chance to rebuild.
Daly was proud the Saints had produced four AFLW players, including Crows rising star Nikki Gore and new recruit Nicole Campbell, in the past four years.
“It’s more a case of us resetting our place in the market and knowing exactly where we sit as opposed to trying to effectively being in direct competition with the SANFLW – which is not really going to be viable long-term,” Daly said.
“We’ve had about 30 odd players go through SANFLW clubs over the past couple of years and a lot of them haven’t come back.
“This year we played most of the year with what would’ve been our seconds team playing in the first competition.
“We forfeited our first four games in the two’s – it was hard.
“Talking to the girls, the ones who want to play at a high level will go to the SANFLW, so we’ll lose them.
“Then the ones that just want to play football and are learning, they’re not interested in doing the travel and going across the town each week.”
The Adelaide Footy League was also considering moving its women’s competition to run parallel with the state league due to fixturing, oval space and logistic concerns.
But the SFLW competition was likely to start again in April and only have a few weeks of crossover with the SANFLW.
Daly said the Saints were also looking to move their junior teams from the SANFL to the SFL to help create a one-club atmosphere.
But he did not rule out having the club’s women’s team return to the Adelaide Footy League in the future.
Meanwhile, the Saints were also on the hunt for a new women’s coach after premiership mentor Michelle O’Brien stepped down.