Young Talent Time Excites Lions WAFLW CoachFriday, February 10, 2023 - 9:37 AM

The disappointment of missing WAFLW finals last year is driving Subiaco heading into the 2023 season.

The Lions won three of their last five games in 2022 but fell short of a finals appearance by percentage, prompting a summer of soul searching according to coach Michael Farmer.

“We had some great opportunities and a couple of games where we showed we had the ability to be competitive with the top sides but we just couldn’t get any consistency in our playing group and to be successful a lot has to go right.

We reflected and reviewed pretty hard as a group last year and the biggest change we implemented was having more support around the players.

We have an amazing strength and conditioning coach, a really good wellbeing program and introduced a leadership role which Janelle Cuthbertson oversees.

2022 was a really good learning opportunity for the group,” he said.
 

Like most clubs at this time of year, the Lions believe they’re well placed to improve.

“The pre-season has been really good and we’ve put a lot of focus on getting our players fitter under Chelsey Heath, our strength and conditioning coach.

We’ve done work on making sure we are more effective with the ball in hand, while staying competitive in the contest, which has been a strong part of game the last couple of seasons.

In terms of doing anything differently, we held an overnight camp for the first time in a few years which had a really positive influence on the playing group.

They seem to be gelling really well which is exciting leading up to the season,” he said. 
 

Player turnover means a level of uncertainty for most clubs and Subiaco is no different. 

“We want to be competitive and consistent.

We believe we have a really good group but it’s a vastly different group to last year so preparing new players for league footy is the challenge.”
 

Farmer has confidence in the talent at his disposal and the ability to take the next step this year.

“Joanne Cregg has really impressed this pre-season after playing last year with Wembley and she has a high-level background in Gaelic.

Kia Buckley has returned to the club after a year off and we have some great amateur players making the step up and showing they’re capable of playing at this level.

You often talk about players, but I also think bringing in Aimee Schmidt to our coaching group and she’s had an enormous impact on our players.”

Moulding a squad with the right age demographic and experience is a priority for Farmer.

“The group has changed so much since I started in 2021, but I feel we have a number of players in our squad that have played more than 25 games at league level and most of those are 20-22 years of age, so the experience is there.

Top that up with Tarni Golisano, Tiah Toth, Madizen Wilkins, Liana Burchell and Tess Lyons and we have a really balanced side of youth and experience.

What really excites me though is the level of talent coming through aged 16-18 who are going to play a part in the club’s push for success over a number of years,” he said.
Subiaco plays its opening round match against South Fremantle on Sunday March 12.