AFLW 2023: Dani Laidley wants to return to coaching, open to vacant West Coast AFLW job

Dani Laidley has been ready to return to coaching for 12 months and, with the West Coast senior coaching role now vacant, says she would take a call from the Eagles for the job.

Former AFL footballer and coach Danielle Laidley will lead the City of Greater Geelong’s celebration IDAHOBIT as this year’skeynote speaker.

Dani Laidley wants to return to senior coaching as the West Coast AFL Women’s job currently sits vacant.

And she said if the Eagles rang, she’d eagerly take the call, revealing she had already been approached by a Victorian-based club in relation to an assistant coaching role.

Laidley, who coached North Melbourne’s men’s team between 2003 and 2009 having played at the Kangaroos and Eagles – including the 1996 North Melbourne premiership – has revealed her desire to again lead a team at the top level.

“Yes, that is true,” she said on SEN WA Breakfast.

“We have been waiting until the documentary (about me) came out … that came out six weeks ago.

“(My partner) Donna and I have been really thinking about what our future holds, and being a passion of mine, I’ve sort of been ready for about 12 months and even actually this AFLW season, I was asked to do a coaching role at one of the Melbourne teams. But I couldn’t, because I was contracted for the doco.

Dani Laidley pictured with partner Donna. Picture: Sam Tabone/Getty Images

“People have connected the dots – well, West Coast have got a position available. Yes, I want to coach again. But let’s not put the cart before the horse. It’s very easy to connect those dots, but it’s true. It’s been a few years now in the making, and as I said, West Coast is the only club at the moment that don’t have a coach for their women’s team, and they may possibly go with the interim coach. Who knows?

“It may be other clubs in Melbourne, as well, who make a decision not to go for their coach. It sounds like a good thing, but there could be some other things happening down the track. I’m just being prepared, if you like, for any case scenario.”

And she said if the club inquired in relation to its senior coaching job, she would “absolutely” engage in the process.

As to why the ambition to return to coaching still burned, Laidley said she “liked developing people, but I have missed the cut and thrust of week-to-week performance”.

“In the corporate world, you don’t get that win and loss each week,” she said.

“I miss that cut and thrust of competition. Coaching is coaching. The game’s changed – it hasn’t changed that much, and it tends to go in circles. I feel like that I have all those skills … and I think I’ve got a really good understanding of watching a lot of AFLW.”

The 56-year-old spoke with Eagles players on Wednesday in the lead up to this weekend’s Pride Round, now a vocal LGBTIQ+ advocate since transitioning from male to female three years ago.

Dani Laidley with Gillon McLachlan at her documentary premiere at ACMI

“(Wednesday’s session) was organised many months ago. It is a great round in AFLW this weekend across the board, and a good friend of mine … organised me to go down and speak to the girls about Pride Round … and my journey,” she said.

“A bit about being your authentic self, about acceptance, about inclusion, so that’s what that was about. It was actually really good.

“It’s the first time I’ve been back at the West Coast Eagles since I left in 1992, and to go through the facility and have a look at how far the club has come and the work that they’re doing behind closed doors was very overwhelming for me, considering everything, given I was one of the first people there in 1987.

“It was a great morning.”

Originally published as AFLW 2023: Dani Laidley wants to return to coaching, open to vacant West Coast AFLW job