Deer Park women’s team coach Bill Feltham, above, with some of his players. Shannon Barry, right, demonstrates some of the skills that will be on show in the VWFL this season. 75940 Picture: DAMJAN JANEVSKI
BY MICHAEL ESPOSITO
THE players are the same, but just about everything else is new.
The former Braybrook women’s Aussie Rules club will now be known as Deer Park, with the club announcing its relocation last week.
The senior side will still compete in the Victorian Women’s Football League’s north-west division, but will be affiliated with Deer Park’s Youth Girls.
Player and assistant coach Tracey Shanahan said having two youth girls teams (under-12 and under-18), which Braybrook did not have, was critical to the survival and growth of the senior side.
“If you don’t have a girls team your pretty much stuffed in a little hole where you’re not going to grow, because you need to filter those girls up to your seniors,” she said.
“We were in this pocket where we just had exhausted all of our avenues, the girls had brought down their friends, and we just could not grow the club anymore. We didn’t have a youth girls.
Deer Park will be the second Brimbank-based team in the VWFL, joining premier division premiers St Albans. Altona will also join the competition this year, meaning competition for Western Suburbs players will be fierce.
“I’m pretty confident that the demographics of where we’re sitting now and how successful the boys are, we’ll bring in a lot more girls,” Shanahan said.
“I’m confident by the time the season starts we can have at least another 10-15 girls registered.
“We should be able to field two sides within the next two years.”
The club’s senior coach Bill Feltham invited interested women to come to training, even if it’s only for a bit of fitness.
Shanahan said there had been a 360-degrees shift in attitude this year, because players could for the first time see a bright future at the club.
Despite fielding a similar looking side to last year’s winless outfit, Shanahan said the players’ enthusiasm and dedication, which was sorely lacking last year, could even lead to a victory or two.
“I used to have to be on the phone 24-7 to try and get them down to training and now they just turn up on their own and come in in droves,” Shanahan said.
For more information about the women’s senior or youth girls sides, contact Deer Park football administrator Daniel Sammut on 0466 586 429 or daniel@deerparkfc.com.au.
