The Northern Football Netball League’s inaugural senior women’s representative football team has been announced.
The team will make history on Saturday when it takes on the South Eastern Women’s in the league’s first-ever senior women’s representative football match.
The game will be played at Preston City Oval, commencing at 12:00pm.
NFNL senior women’s coach Chyloe Kurdas said the inaugural representative program had already been a success, irrespective of how Saturday’s match played out.
“The number one focus was to develop their skills, learn more about the tactics and strategies around the game,” Kurdas said.
“They’ve just been a really amazing and coachable group of women who are already reporting that the things they’re learning in our program they are applying in their club games on weekends.
“They feel like they are more confident and more competent footballers and have a great understanding of how you play the game – that’s the type of feedback they are getting.
“I feel like the program has been a success and the game on the weekend gives us an opportunity to apply things we’ve been learning in a match context.”
The NFNL’s 24-player senior women’s team contains representatives from 14 clubs within the league’s women’s competition.
Kurdas, who last year coached the league’s under-15 girls representative team to premiership success at the AFL Victoria Metro Junior Championships, said it was important to have a great cross-section of the league represented within the women’s team.
“What’s been really lovely is that we’ve got great representation across the many clubs within the league, which was one of my main focuses when agreeing to take the role on,” she said.
“We wanted there to be an opportunity for all clubs to have a representative. We wanted not just the best players in the league, but the best players at each club to give them the opportunity to represent the league.
“They’ve been a really terrific group of women to coach.”
As the squad prepares to make history as the NFNL’s first senior representative football team, Kurdas said the honour was not lost on her or the playing group.
“It’s a great privilege,” she said.
“I love creating history, particularly in relation to gender because historically there have been so many doors closed to girls over a very long period of time.
“It’s nice to be there as we open another door.
“I feel a great sense of privilege and responsibility to be walking alongside this group of people, both the playing group but also some really critical leaders in the league – who are both men and women who have been instrumental in making sure this door opens.
“I feel a great sense of privilege and responsibility but also a great deal of connection that we can share this experience together.”
To view the 2018 NFNL senior women’s representative squad, please click on the link below.
