Teen Wolf
Norm Smith Medallist
- Jul 5, 2011
- 8,117
- 8,925
- AFL Club
- North Melbourne
- Other Teams
- Afghanistan women's cricket team
Who are these overlooked specialist coaches supposed to be... Bec Goddard, Michelle Cowan, Tim Schmidt, Tom Hunter? Adelaide, Fremantle, GWS and Richmond all improved after those coaches were replaced with guys who had little or no experience in women's football.So after an exhaustive search, Geelong has given the AFLW senior coach job to a guy who used to play for them, has been a men’s assistant coach, and joined their AFLW program as an assistant half way through last year. Words fail me. I can only assume it’s a soft cap-related decision like ours.
Women’s footy is not men‘s footy. But from the top level through suburban clubs, specialist coaches in the women’s game - women and men - keep getting overlooked in favour of keeping mates in work. Everyone loves Crocks but this model is not good enough.
Paul Hood was VFLW coach of the year before getting the AFLW job at Geelong and taking them to a 6-17 record which included just two scores of 40+ (both came against teams coached by other so-called specialists in the women's game).
Scott Gowans? The more we back over it, the more his name is tarnished, and perhaps unfairly for all we know. But the fact of the matter is our captain was glad to see the back of him and she made that pretty clear publicly. What is a club to do.
Besides, 10 years from now, I'm betting women's footy will have proven to be quite alike to men's footy in the sense that AFLW coaches will be mostly or entirely former AFLW players.