WOORINEN’S women’s and youth girls’ teams will play a finals double-header at Queen Elizabeth Oval this Sunday in a show of the female football program at the club.
The women’s team have been undefeated through August, winning the past three games to finish third on the ladder, taking their tally to 11 wins.
This weekend the Tigers will take on fourth-placed Eaglehawk, the team they held to a single goal in last weekend’s 133-point win on the Hawks’ home ground.
Former Richmond AFLW star Courtney Wakefield booted nine goals for the game, while skipper Tenay Fellows was close behind with seven goals.
But Tigers coach Katelyn Hazlett said her side wouldn’t focus much on their recent results when the pressure of finals football loomed.
“We’re obviously happy with last week’s win, but we still know that Eaglehawk can provide some really god competition and that anything can happen in finals,” she said.
“The finals really brings out the absolute best in all players and it makes for a completely different game.
“We probably had a bit of a disrupted latter half of the season, so our focus in the last three games was to play out four quarters of football and really gel the group together.
“As happy as we are to finish our season off in that fashion, we won’t be thinking about it too much.
“We’ll go in completely fresh to this match and still make sure we are respecting our opposition come Sunday.”
The Tigers are no strangers to finals in the Central Victorian Football League, falling just short of a premiership last year with a grand final loss at the hands of Castlemaine.
Hazlett said her side were motivated by the chance to go one better this year.
“I think last year’s grand final loss has really driven our side forward even more,” she said.
“No one ever wants to lose a grand final, but everything seemed to happen really quickly last year.
“I don’t think we really had a chance to soak it all up in the first year. I think this year we now know just how much something like a grand final can mean to you.
“We’ve had a bunch of young players come through who are really hungry for success, and who have been playing some awesome football these last couple of weeks.”
The women’s team will be the second Tigers side to take the field on Sunday, with the under-18 girls set to kick off the action from 10.50am on Sunday.
The girls also finished the season in third place and are set to take on Strathfieldsaye off the back of a 114-point win over Eaglehawk last week.
Woorinen faced Strathfieldsaye in round 16, treating the home supporters to a 54-point win thanks to a bag of five goals by Grace Ayars.
Ayars finished the season with 28 goals from her 13 games and has become a force for the young Tigers side.
Sunny Barry, Eva Coffey, Meg Young and Milla Stewart are four other up-and-coming stars of girls’ football in the region, in a side that emphasises team play.
Hazlett said the success of the girls’ and women’s teams showed the strength of the pathway from junior girls’ football to the women’s side.
“I think that footy in our region is looking really strong at the moment,” she said.
“It feels as though the work that has gone into the pathways here at Woorinen is really paying off.
“I’m really excited to see what the next few years hold, especially with the work that is going into under-12 and under-15 comps that will then feed into our teams.
Hazlett said she hoped football fans from across the region would make the journey to Bendigo this weekend to cheer on both sides.
“Last year it felt like we had half of Swan Hill travelling down to cheer us on, so it’d be great to see that again,” she said.
“We see that love and support from right across the region. We’re really proud to wear the yellow and black and it feels as though we are the team of the wider community.”
