Abby continuing Barnden family legacy at ThunderFriday, September 18, 2020 - 11:06 AM - by Chris Pike

THE Barnden family has been synonymous with the Peel Thunder Football Club for more than 20 years and now star player Abby has the chance to be part of history on Saturday if she can lead her team to a WAFL Women's premiership.

Wayne Barnden joined Peel Thunder for its second WAFL season in 1998 on the back of his 62-game playing career at East Fremantle prior to that and he went on to play another 76 matches with the Mandurah-based club.

The Barnden family has remained closely linked with Peel ever since and Paula now works full-time at the club as sponsorship and marketing manager so to say the Thunder means a lot and is a big part in the lives of the Barnden family would be quite the understatement.

So now this Saturday Abby Barnden will be leading the Thunder into battle in the 2020 WAFL Women's Grand Final against Subiaco at Joondalup's Provident Financial Oval with the chance to create history.

Peel was part of the inaugural WAFLW season in 2019 but it wasn’t a year they'd like to remember winning just the one match and claiming the wooden spoon.

But 2020 has been a remarkable turnaround and the Thunder were able to win four of the seven matches during the home and away season to end up in second position on the ladder.

They then narrowly lost the second semi-final to Subiaco in wet conditions at Leederville Oval but bounced back well last week at David Grays Arena to beat reigning premiers East Fremantle in Mandurah and in front of their vocal home fans.

That completed Peel's rise from wooden spoon to Grand Final in the space of just over 12 months and Abby continues to marvel at the support the Thunder get from so many people, and knowing what it means to her family, she now can't wait for Saturday's big game.

"We are blown away to be honest to be in the Grand Final. It's nice to see all our hard work paying off and we are super excited and definitely ready to bring it to Subi," Barnden said.

"It's unbelievable that our sponsors and crowd with the support we get every weekend, it's the same people and we are one big family at Peel. 

"It's awesome to see my family come through at the club with my dad and my mum working at the footy club, and everyone's parents, partners and friends really get around it so it's going to be a super weekend for us."

While the Thunder team does have some experienced stars leading the way like Kira Phillips, Demi Okely, Krystal Carter, Ebony Dowson, Greta McKinley, Kate Ditchburn, Whitney Benson and Hannah Church, it is the emerging young players who have been key to their rise.

That included Ella Roberts who stepped up huge in the preliminary final win against East Fremantle as she continues to travel from Margaret River. 

There's also stories like Ebony Bilcich and Jaide Britton who are combining their basketball commitments at the South West Slammers and Mandurah Magic respectively with their football, and overall Barnden is just excited by their young talent.

"I couldn’t believe it. I met Ella for the first time this year and to drive up from Margaret River every weekend, and every week for training is pretty amazing," she said.

"But they have just stepped up so much, our Youth Girls this year and she has stood out excellently on the weekend. Hopefully she can bring that out again on this weekend."

Coming off the disappointing 2019 WAFLW season, Peel turned its focus onto becoming a closer unit together on and off the field as a playing group. 

Even Barnden marvels at just how well and how quickly that has helped to get to them to where they are now.

"Our big focus for this year was our team bonding, that was the massive difference from last year when we had a few gaps between the youth and the older players," Barnden said.

"So that was a massive focus and I think we've definitely brought that in. We've got a lot of younger girls that have stepped up and our older players that have just gelled so well. That's what has helped us so much this year I think."

Subiaco has finished as minor premiers for the second straight season in the WAFLW competition and now present a significant challenge for Peel on Sunday at Joondalup led by Hayley Miller, Tiah Haynes, Lindal Rohde, Danika Pisconeri, Ange Stannett and company.

But Peel won't be overawed by the stars out there for the Lions and Barnden wants them to just focus on themselves as much as possible.

"We've spoke about playing Subiaco at training and we definitely acknowledge their quality players like Miller and Haynes, but we're definitely focused on us this weekend," Barnden said. 

"As tough as they are, we can be tough as well and we're trying to focus on us rather than them and hopefully that helps us bring it home."