AFLW This is a must listen. Fantastic NEW Richmond AFLW podcast - Ep7 Sophie Molan 13/03/20

[TigermanM2]

New podcast The Originals launches ahead of AFLW season
Written and presented by award-winning journalist and author, Sam Lane, The Originals charts the arrival of a new breed of Tiger.
By Samantha Lane, richmondfc.com.au - 13 hrs ago

Peggy O’Neal has vented over Richmond’s failed first bid for an AFL Women’s club licence - a decision that the Tigers’ president terms “unjustified”.
On that rejection at first attempt, Richmond CEO Brendon Gale has reflected: “…the thing we did learn is you’ve got to play the backroom game”. While O’Neal admits: “I still to this day don’t know the reasons for the decisions”.
Richmond will launch the fourth AFLW season on competition debut, in a match next Friday night against Carlton.
The Tigers’ path is revisited in The Originals, a new podcast series to mark the club-changing milestone.
A new Richmond Football Club team. A new Richmond Football Club podcast. Written and presented by award-winning journalist and author, Sam Lane.
Subscribe and listen to The Originals on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify

Richmond was not the unequalled membership juggernaut, or the modern men’s AFL premiership-winning powerhouse it is today when it applied to join AFLW as a foundation club for 2017.
But the Tigers were widely regarded as leaders when it came to addressing gender inequity.
Richmond formally investigated deeply entrenched problems relating to women in its own backyard – ranging from poor female membership engagement to blockages in professional pathways - and committed to fixing them.
It commissioned a pioneering report undertaken by an external consultant, Dr Pippa Grange, that was co-funded by the Australian Sports Commission and the AFL. Richmond also led the establishment of a sport ‘Male Champions of Change’ group chaired by then-Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner, Elizabeth Broderick.
Quite aside from O’Neal’s unique position in Australian sport – she remains the only woman AFL club president - the Tigers were considered clear front-runners for an inaugural AFLW licence.
Thirteen clubs applied before the 2017 competition launch, and the AFL ultimately issued eight.

“I think the thing we did learn is…you’ve got to really lobby. Lobby really hard. You’ve got to push you’ve got to politick, you’ve got to influence. And we probably thought we were above that, to be honest,” Gale says in the first episode of The Originals.
“And maybe it was a hubris. We probably thought: we’re strong in this space, we’ve got a really strong record and we deserve a licence.”
Gale confesses he’s scarcely watched a match of AFLW in its first three seasons, apart from the grand finals, because the Tigers have been excluded from the football code and wider culture-changing phenomenon.
Richmond has built its foundations, before its 2020 AFLW debut, through fielding a team in the top Victorian women’s football league in 2018 and 2019.
A women’s match between St Kilda and Richmond that was planned with AFL involvement, but never played is also detailed in The Originals. Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs ultimately became the pioneering AFL ‘pilot’ clubs for women’s footy, roundly regarded as rightful AFLW foundation clubs from season one.

The first known team of women to play for Richmond; some wore masks. Get the backstory in the launch episode of The Originals podcast.
Subscribe ahead of next week's second episode on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify

Episode 1 - In the Beginning

“I was angry. I was. Only because I thought it was unjustified.”– Peggy O’Neal revisits Richmond’s first bid for an AFLW licence on The Originals podcast.“I learnt a hell of a lot.“I’m a 40-year-old, white, male…that played at this club. So I’m the football master race so to speak. And I...

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[TigermanM2]

Episode 2 has dropped


TheOriginals
The inside stories of how Richmond landed star AFLW trio
In the second episode of The Originals podcast, Samantha Lane covers how Richmond landed star AFLW trio, Katie Brennan, Sabrina Frederick and Monique Conti.
By Samantha Lane, richmondfc.com.au - 17 hrs ago

City dining, almond scrolls and a boardroom meeting with club heavyweights – Richmond’s legwork to lure a trio of AFLW stars was not only successful, it was also deeply strategised.
Head AFLW coach Tom Hunter has detailed in the second episode of The Originals podcast how he learnt that Katie Brennan, who defected from the Western Bulldogs as captain, was a potential recruit.
Hunter had not even contemplated that possibility before Richmond football operations manager Kate Sheahan gave him a confidential heads-up.

The Originals: Episode 2 - Building a new breed of Tiger
Written and presented by award-winning journalist and author, Sam Lane; subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify
One meeting led to another.
The first, Hunter explains, was focused on Brennan’s football and the Tigers’ plans before joining AFLW in 2020.
Aiming to appeal to Brennan’s business interests, Richmond later had its commercial operations and marketing boss, Simon Derrick, present to the prospective big name recruit.
That happened over dinner – Melbourne dining hot spot Kisumé to be exact.
Imagining it would be another angle that appealed to Brennan, the Tigers also brought pioneering club president Peggy O’Neal to that table.
“I think we left it pretty confident,” Hunter reflects of the meeting he describes in The Originals.
“It was almost like the final cherry on top.”

The Tigers met with another of the AFLW’s most high profile and high performing players, inaugural Brisbane Lion Sabrina Frederick, over a breakfast spread at Sheahan’s home.
Richmond’s full-time AFLW welfare manager, Sarah Wylie, was asked to that. The intended message?
“To show that she’d be really well supported off field,” Hunter says.
“I think most people forget about Sabrina that she’s only 22.”
Hunter also tables that Frederick was his number one recruitment target. All-Australian Bulldog and elite basketballer Monique Conti was third on his wish list. A cohort including Richmond CEO Brendon Gale, full-time head of AFLW high performance, Matt Parker, and Neil Balme eventually presented to Conti in the boardroom at Richmond’s Punt Road headquarters.
“We presented how we saw her in the Richmond colours and the team make up,” Hunter recalls.
“Matt Parker spoke a lot about how we can help her be the best athlete … and that if she’s going to miss something through her basketball commitments that she can come in during the day and either watch vision or do an extra session with ‘Parks’.
“I think that really appealed to Mon.”

Hear more inside stories in The Originals podcast.
Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify

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[Stan Judkins]

Episode 2 has dropped


TheOriginals
The inside stories of how Richmond landed star AFLW trio
In the second episode of The Originals podcast, Samantha Lane covers how Richmond landed star AFLW trio, Katie Brennan, Sabrina Frederick and Monique Conti.
By Samantha Lane, richmondfc.com.au - 17 hrs ago

City dining, almond scrolls and a boardroom meeting with club heavyweights – Richmond’s legwork to lure a trio of AFLW stars was not only successful, it was also deeply strategised.
Head AFLW coach Tom Hunter has detailed in the second episode of The Originals podcast how he learnt that Katie Brennan, who defected from the Western Bulldogs as captain, was a potential recruit.
Hunter had not even contemplated that possibility before Richmond football operations manager Kate Sheahan gave him a confidential heads-up.

The Originals: Episode 2 - Building a new breed of Tiger
Written and presented by award-winning journalist and author, Sam Lane; subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify
One meeting led to another.
The first, Hunter explains, was focused on Brennan’s football and the Tigers’ plans before joining AFLW in 2020.
Aiming to appeal to Brennan’s business interests, Richmond later had its commercial operations and marketing boss, Simon Derrick, present to the prospective big name recruit.
That happened over dinner – Melbourne dining hot spot Kisumé to be exact.
Imagining it would be another angle that appealed to Brennan, the Tigers also brought pioneering club president Peggy O’Neal to that table.
“I think we left it pretty confident,” Hunter reflects of the meeting he describes in The Originals.
“It was almost like the final cherry on top.”

The Tigers met with another of the AFLW’s most high profile and high performing players, inaugural Brisbane Lion Sabrina Frederick, over a breakfast spread at Sheahan’s home.
Richmond’s full-time AFLW welfare manager, Sarah Wylie, was asked to that. The intended message?
“To show that she’d be really well supported off field,” Hunter says.
“I think most people forget about Sabrina that she’s only 22.”
Hunter also tables that Frederick was his number one recruitment target. All-Australian Bulldog and elite basketballer Monique Conti was third on his wish list. A cohort including Richmond CEO Brendon Gale, full-time head of AFLW high performance, Matt Parker, and Neil Balme eventually presented to Conti in the boardroom at Richmond’s Punt Road headquarters.
“We presented how we saw her in the Richmond colours and the team make up,” Hunter recalls.
“Matt Parker spoke a lot about how we can help her be the best athlete … and that if she’s going to miss something through her basketball commitments that she can come in during the day and either watch vision or do an extra session with ‘Parks’.
“I think that really appealed to Mon.”

Hear more inside stories in The Originals podcast.
Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify

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Interesting parts for me were:
Hunter had not even contemplated that possibility (recruiting Kate Brennan) before Richmond football operations manager Kate Sheahan gave him a confidential heads-up.
Hunter also tables that Frederick was his number one recruitment target.
All-Australian Bulldog and elite basketballer Monique Conti was third on his wish list.
Kate Sheahan is almost Balme like in her influence of our AFLW program

 

[TigermanM2]

Interesting parts for me were:
Hunter had not even contemplated that possibility (recruiting Kate Brennan) before Richmond football operations manager Kate Sheahan gave him a confidential heads-up.
Hunter also tables that Frederick was his number one recruitment target.
All-Australian Bulldog and elite basketballer Monique Conti was third on his wish list.
Kate Sheahan is almost Balme like in her influence of our AFLW program

I actually had heard early on that there were AFLW players that had approached us wanting in and that the names would blow my socks off but I wasn’t given names and to be truthful I was a bit sceptical with the source but he proved to be accurate. Word was out that we were creating something different to every other team.
I was told there were also quite a few we knocked back as the “fit” wasn’t right.

 

[Stan Judkins]

I actually had heard early on that there were AFLW players that had approached us wanting in and that the names would blow my socks off but I wasn’t given names and to be truthful I was a bit sceptical with the source but he proved to be accurate. Word was out that we were creating something different to every other team.
I was told there were also quite a few we knocked back as the “fit” wasn’t right.

All the stars aligning , building something special for sure
The thing for me was the initial disappointment of the 2017 bid to the full on 2019 bid to enter the competition
Also the buy in of the club to invest whatever $$$$ were required to make our AFLW team competitive

 

[TigermanM2]

Episode 3 dropped today

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[TigermanM2]

Episode 4

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TheOriginals
Tom Hunter: The Originals' original coach
Richmond AFLW coach Tom Hunter details physical pain he experienced in the initial aftermath of what were career-ending collisions when he was a Collingwood player, in the fourth episode of The Originals podcast.
By Samantha Lane, richmondfc.com.au

Tom Hunter has described a three-year grieving period that followed his frightening exit as an AFL listed player before a happy rebirth as a head AFLW coach.
Forced into playing retirement at age 20, when he was on Collingwood’s list, Hunter – now 29 – still feels like he could play. But a congenital spinal condition extinguished that proposition after a first on-field collision, and red flag moment, saw him flown to hospital in physical agony.

The Originals: Episode 4 - Tom Hunter interview
Written and presented by award-winning journalist and author, Sam Lane; subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify
Expert advice that playing football was too dangerous for him, ultimately set Hunter on a path to coaching. Though not before a period of private turmoil that he has detailed in the fourth episode of The Originals podcast.
“I think my grief period went for about three years…initially I tried just to deny it,” Hunter says.

“I still find myself incredibly lucky; that I’m able to walk, I’m able to still be involved in football and that I can have a normal life. Just without playing football.”
Hunter reflects how, in early transition from playing life, he resented a life less ordinary.
“You’re going from a 20-year-old AFL footballer to a uni student that’s having to do his plan B,” he says.

“I remember days crying to Mum just saying ‘I’m not going to uni’ because I hated it.”
Gaining a teaching degree, however, has seen Hunter fuse dual passions of education and football - through coaching.

Hunter details physical pain he experienced in the initial aftermath of what were career-ending collisions when he was a Collingwood player.
He also discusses the fulfilling experience of coaching women - something of a personal and professional revelation given he originally envisaged himself pursuing work developing male footballers.

The Originals podcast; charting the arrival of a new breed of Tiger.

 

[TigermanM2]

Episode 5

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Sabrina Frederick: Redefined
In the fifth episode of The Originals podcast, Sabrina Frederick talks about the reasons behind her name change, and details her journey from Perth to Brisbane to Tigerland.
By Samantha Lane, richmondfc.com.au

Sabrina Frederick has detailed the reasons behind her name change – a multi-layered choice that became public when one of the AFLW’s biggest fish left Brisbane and joined Richmond.
An inaugural AFLW marquee player listed in the 2017 and 2018 All-Australian teams as Sabrina Frederick-Traub, the 23-year-old has discussed her deep consideration of identity. Of the choice to leave one AFL club and relocate interstate to join another, Frederick has said: “It was the first decision I had made for my future not based on what other people think, which is a huge step for me.”

In the fifth episode of The Originals podcast Frederick says she had carried her stepfather’s name for most of her life but relinquished it after a family separation. She is cultivating a relationship with her biological father and explains that: “The third, and most important, reason to me is I’m about to marry my partner. In December. And she will be taking my last name”.
Laying emotions bare, Frederick speaks of “losing the love of the game” in a challenging period after her first move for AFLW - from Perth to Brisbane – alone as a 19-year-old.
“I just didn’t feel whole. Even though I tried so much,” she says in the podcast, crediting former Lions teammate now Carlton player, Tayla Harris, as a crucial support.
“She’ll probably never know how much I appreciate what she does for me and did for me,” Frederick says.
Relocating to Melbourne was a decision based on Frederick prioritising love, extended family and her hope to be a mother with her soon-to-be-wife, Lili.

“It’s just nice now to be in a spot where I really enjoy playing, I enjoy training, I’m really happy with my family life, I’ve got a partner; I’m in a really good spot,” she says.
Later in the podcast Frederick describes her new club’s AFLW captain, Katie Brennan, as “one of the most selfless people I’ve ever met”. She is also critical of the way AFL players can be scrutinised to the point of what she terms bullying.

Reflecting on telling the Brisbane Lions that she wanted to leave, Frederick says: “I was really upset. They were really upset. It wasn’t a malicious thing at all.
“Craig (Lions coach Craig Starcevich) and I had a really, really good relationship where he knew, at some point, I’d want to go home.”

The Originals podcast; Sabrina Frederick: Redefined
Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify

 

[TigermanM2]

Episode 6. Just about my favourite AFLW Tiger.
Fabulous story.

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Episode 6 - Courtney Wakefield: Determination to play
“Lots of feeding, no sleeping and that’s it." - Courtney Wakefield on driving herself to Bendigo for a physical try out to join Richmond.Family relocation, epic road trips, breastfeeding in a grandstand during a trial to become a Tiger. Courtney Wakefield’s determination to play AFLW has featured all of this and much more.


Breastfeeding mere minutes before a physical try out to join Richmond? Yes. And that wasn’t the half of it that day. As Wakefield attempted to resume playing Aussie Rules after a 20-year gap, her youngest child was aged just seven weeks, and her eldest – a toddler - was running rampant on the sidelines.

The 32-year-old forward has detailed in the sixth edition of The Originals podcast how she and husband, Tom, experienced four miscarried pregnancies before they became parents of two.

When she drove herself to Bendigo to be put through her paces for the first time she found herself looking for excuses to turn around and head for home – a six-hour drive from Melbourne, in the New South Wales town of Top Hut.

“Lots of feeding, no sleeping and that’s it. I was extremely unfit,” she says.

“I was extremely nervous but I just kept saying ‘you’ve got nothing to lose’.”

Wakefield, who kicked Richmond’s second AFLW goal in the club’s round one competition debut and three goals in round four – in Bendigo – against Geelong, remembers wearing: “A very supportive sports bra and some old sneakers and some Wentworth footy shorts.”

She couldn’t physically do the two-kilometre time trial – “I had to feed, my boobs were full and it was so hot, I couldn’t do that one,” she recalls – but Tigers women’s football boss Kate Sheahan reassured her.

Fast-forward and Wakefield played VFLW for the Tigers and is now an original member of the Tigers’ original AFLW list.

Wakefield, her husband and their kids have moved from their farm in Top Hut so that she can play for Richmond. The kindness of friends has seen the quartet move to Pearcedale, about an hour’s drive from Punt Road Oval.

Previously, when Wakefield was playing VFLW, she drove six hours each way to train and play; sometimes dropping by her sister’s home in Bendigo for childcare support.

 

[TigermanM2]

Sophie Molan: The Originals’ first pick

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The Originals: Episode 7 - Sophie Molan interview
Written and presented by award-winning journalist and author, Sam Lane; subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify

Top Richmond draft pick Sophie Molan has described how unhealthy comparison between herself and other leading 2020 recruits was nipped in the bud by a Tiger boss who detected something was amiss.

A distorted sense of self-appraisal was taking the form of simple statistical analysis by the 18-year-old who has moved from Ballarat to Punt Road after finishing VCE. Molan was the seventh section overall of the fourth AFL Women’s National Draft and the Tigers gave her the number one jumper in their original AFLW team.

To measure her impact in her AFLW debut weeks Molan was monitoring the weekly on-field numbers of Carlton’s Lucy McEvoy and St Kilda’s Georgia Patrikios. McEvoy and Patrikios were instant hits in the top league as joint-Round One nominees in the coveted AFLW Rising Star Award upon their debuts.

In the seventh episode of The Originals podcast Molan has shared her feeling that she was “letting her team down” and tabled mental challenges that feel unfamiliar after dominating in AFLW pathway competition.

“To start with I probably struggled a little bit, looking at the likes of Lucy McEvoy and Georgia Patrikios, who I played with or was in the academy with,” Molan says.

“They were the first picks for their clubs as well and seeing how dominant they were being, and how much impact they were having on the game that I may not have had at the start.”

After the Tigers’ loss to North Melbourne in round three, Molan says Richmond’s AFLW team chief, Kate Sheahan, called a circuit-breaking chat.

“She sat me down and said: ‘Sophie, I don’t need you to be the number one midfielder in the team, you’re a kid; just play your game’.

“I think that’s helped me a lot in the last couple of weeks - not worrying about how many touches Petrikios has, or Lucy McEvoy.”

Molan says she has stopped looking at the pair’s stats completely, and is also modifying her relationship with a social media stream that, by her description, is “filled with football”.

“I’ve started not not looking at it, but not looking into it,” she says.

Initially intending to take a gap year after finishing her high school studies, Molan has opted to study part-time, enrolling in an exercise and sport science course.

Since her drafting she has moved from Ballarat into the Richmond home of Tiger board member, Henriette Rothschild; an environment Molan says she is loving.

Before the launch of AFLW Molan aspired to become so good at Aussie Rules that an elite men’s team would field her.

“I said to Dad when I was younger: ‘I want to be the first girl to play in the AFL. The men’s competition’.”

Juggling basketball - Molan played at state level in under-16s - she looked to Collingwood star Scott Pendlebury as her example given his early basketball success.

Until the piloting of women’s AFL exhibition games - televised for the first time in 2015 by Channel 7 and which Molan was captivated by - she had never seen women play footy.

“It’s pretty crazy if you think about it now,” she says.

Molan played VFLW for the Western Bulldogs last year and says the AFLW competition she envisages ultimately “looks the same as the boys’”.

“So the season’s the same length. We have the same contact hours. The same pay.

“I think in the next five, ten years it can get to that and the standard of the game is going to improve greatly as well because the girls that are coming through now have had the pathway all the way through like I did,” Molan says.

“And some of the skill level of the younger girls now is unbelievable.”

The Originals podcast; Sophie Molan: The Originals' first pick
Subscribe and listen on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Spotify