In last week’s Inside the EFL, CEO Phil Murton discussed the expansion of girls and women’s football across the competition.
Changing the Game
Last weekend marked another significant day for the League with the first round of games of the expanded Deakin University Eastern Region Women’s Competition taking place.
After a terrific inaugural season that saw Bayswater defeat Waverley Blues to take out the premiership, the competition is expanding with eight new teams competing across two divisions.
The new teams are from East Ringwood, Boronia, Donvale, The Basin, Vermont, South Croydon, Upwey-Tecoma and Thornton-Eildon. All teams got a sample of what’s to come with a great Lightning Premiership at Knox a fortnight ago.
An important part of the expanding senior women’s competition is getting integration with our senior men’s football. We want the experience for the women new to the game to be the best it can be and part of this is the match day experience. This year we’ve aligned the women’s fixture with the men’s fixture as much as possible and we’ll prioritise four games in a day and twilight games as part of this.
The growth in senior women’s footy is underpinned by the Eastern Region Girls Competition, which this year has 109 teams, up from 85 in 2017.
The region now has a designated female football resource with Jessie Mulholland taking the reins as Region Talent and Competitions Coordinator, managing both the Eastern Ranges talent pathway as well as the Eastern Region Girls and Women’s competitions. With a strong background as both a player and administrator in female football, we are thrilled to have someone with the passion and ability of Jessie help steer the direction of female footy in the east.
The female talent pathways continue to grow. We will again field two teams in the AFL Vic Junior Metropolitan Championships giving 50 or so under-15 girls the chance to improve their skills with and against the best.
The Eastern Ranges Girls TAC Cup team is having a terrific campaign and is on target to potentially reach the grand final, with a big game versus the undefeated Geelong Falcons on Saturday.
And with Hawthorn taking on the VFL Women’s licence from Box Hill, there are great opportunities for females in the east to be part of successful elite talent programs. As the profile and size of the AFLW competition continues to grow, we hope the east will be a strong recruiting ground for talent, just as it has been for their male counterparts.
While growth brings with it opportunity, it also brings with it some challenges such as facilities and resourcing, both at club and League level. Coaches, trainers, team managers and umpires, are all roles that need to be filled. With the significant growth in female participation we are seeing across the region, some patience is needed from a facility perspective, but we are working with AFL Victoria, government and councils on helping address this. We hope the recent announcements of increased funding for community football facility upgrades helps address some of these challenges, with the east of Melbourne historically having been underfunded at government level when compared to other parts of Victoria from a football infrastructure perspective.
Between the new senior women’s teams, the aligned EFL girls teams, and the record 78 netball teams, in 2018 female participation make up around 20 per cent of our competition, up from less than 1 per cent just five years ago. Having these females and their families directly involved in our clubs is changing the make-up of sport in our region in a great way.
See you at the games this week.
