Dani Laidley puts up her hand to coach West Coast AFLW team

A vacancy at West Coast could be filled by a former AFL coach turned trailblazer, with the club’s new CEO opening the door for the move.

Dani Laidley says she would love to coach in the AFLW. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

New West Coast chief executive Don Pyke says he sees Dani Laidley “as an option” to be the club’s new AFLW coach after the former North Melbourne mentor confirmed she was eyeing a groundbreaking return to coaching at the Eagles.

Laidley revealed she had spoken to Eagles players on Wednesday as part of the build-up to AFLW Pride Round this weekend and was keen to “coach again”.

It comes after West Coast parted ways with senior coach Michael Prior last week after a disappointing 2-6 start to the season, with assistant Rohan McHugh taking the reins for the final two games.

Laidley, who splits her time between Melbourne and Perth, said she was prepared for “any case scenario” to return to coaching with an AFLW team.

The Kangaroos premiership player said she was not pursuing a coaching return in the men’s game.

Dani Laidley, speaking alongside Brad Scott at a Kangaroos club function in 2021, is eager to return to coaching in the AFLW. Picture: Michael Willson / AFL Photos

“(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,” Laidley told SEN on Thursday.

“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?”

Pyke, who was confirmed as the club’s new chief executive on Thursday, said the club would talk to Laidley if she wanted to be part of the process to appoint a new coach.

“I haven’t had any conversations of that nature but have seen the media speculation,” he said.

“I would see that as an option I would have thought, if she was interested in pursuing the process.”

Laidley said she had missed the “cut and thrust” of a role in football but was confident her eight-year absence from the game did not mean she would be too far out of touch with coaching trends.

Former AFL boss Gillon McLachlan and Laidley. Picture: Mark Stewart

After coaching North Melbourne from 2003 to 2009, Laidley held assistant coach roles at Port Adelaide, St Kilda and Carlton over the next six seasons before leaving the Blues in 2015.

“I’m just being prepared, if you like, for any case scenario. I have missed the cut and thrust of week-to-week performance,” she said.

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

“I miss that cut and thrust of competition. Coaching is coaching. The game’s changed – (but) 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.”

Laidley said she had a “great morning” speaking to the Eagles players ahead of their Pride Round match against Adelaide on Sunday.

“(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.”