Northern Knights providing female coaching voices for AFLW Draft hopefuls
AFLW stars Gabby Newton and Maddy Guerin are part of the Northern Knights all-female assistant coaching team, hoping to inspire the next generation.
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As the adage goes ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’.
As women’s football has exploded the increase in women coaching has had to play catch up.
While the AFLW is quickly improving with every wave of new draftees and the NAB League, the AFLW’s major feeder competition, is also doing its part when it comes to women coaching.
The Northern Knights are proving a leader in this space.
While Leigh Clarke is the under-19 girls head coach, Natalie Grindal is one of the program’s major drivers and one of only two female talent managers in the competition.
This season the Knights also have an all-female assistant coaching group.
Knights graduate and Western Bulldogs No.1 draft pick Gabby Newton, Laura Frazer and Ines McKay are assistants, Carlton AFLW star Maddy Guerin is a development coach and Michelle Andrews oversees strength and conditioning.
Newton will miss the entire 2022 AFLW season after a dual shoulder reconstruction but now understands the importance of having female voices.
“As a player you always think it doesn’t make a difference having a male or female coach but I’ve noticed this year having a couple of females at the Doggies, it’s actually really nice to have role models who are females,” she said.
“To be that for girls in this team is really special and important to me.”
There was no “elite talent pathway” for girls before the NAB League Girls competition began in 2017.
In 2021, 22 girls were drafted from the under-19 competition, by far the most of any competition.
Returning to the Knights in a development role, Guerin is impressed by the rapid improvement since being drafted in 2017.
“I was them four or five years ago, so being able to give them some advice and see their development is really cool,” she said.
“The skills have improved so much, when we were younger you never saw girls at the park having a kick or the training involved to improve skills.
“These girls have had thousands of hours more than us in skill development and it’s way more mainstream to pick up a footy as a girl.
“Out on the track you notice how natural they are with a footy … the girls are way more confident and the game sense is so much better.”
It’s a short pre-season for the girls with the under-19s now aligned with the start of the AFLW season.
The Knights first game is on January 23, just a handful of training sessions are left in which to prepare.
Frazer and McKay grew up playing the game much like any boy and are now two quality young coaches proving that anyone can teach the game.
Frazer has coached in the Team Vic program as well as overseas while McKay began her journey with the Glen Iris Gladiators in the Yarra Junior league.
McKay loves seeing girls reach their potential even if they aren’t drafted.
“It’s really nice being involved in a girls program, especially one of such high quality,” she said.
“We do have girls looking to get drafted but we also have girls here to enjoy their time playing football and achieve their potential.
“I work in a high school as well and I see a lot of girls in Year 7 saying I want to play AFLW, that’s what I want to do, rather than just the boys.
“The girls you see actually have a chance … we’re going to have this, breed I’m going to call them, of girls coming through that football has been their lives.”
Meanwhile, Frazer can remember getting ready for games in far from elite environments and is thrilled to be part of the game’s explosion.
“I was at Diamond Creek and we were getting changed in shipping containers because we didn’t have changerooms,” she said.
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“To now being able to make sure these girls have got those opportunities that we never had, you look back with pride knowing we started that movement, people like Debbie Lee.
“Being able to not only help them develop as players but also be able to be role models for them, in these times when the girls have the opportunity to play professionally and grow up playing footy, has been magnificent to watch.”
The Knights didn’t have a player drafted to the AFLW in 2021 but had previously had Newton and Ellie McKenzie taken No.1 in back-to-back seasons.
The likes of Ella Smallacombe, Tarrah Delgado and Maykaylah Appleby will return as 19-year-olds this season.
This year’s crop of young guns should look no further than Grindal’s unbelievable goal against the wind at training to believe anything is possible.
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