Guest Editorial: Confidence grows in our women’s players

Shona MacInness – Women’s Football Development Manager

The legendary NFL coach Vince Lombardi once said “confidence is contagious”. After taking over the reins at the struggling Green Bay Packers in 1959, Lombardi was named NFL coach of the year in his rookie season.

In the rookie year of our women’s football competition, I have watched our women players evolve at an extraordinary rate. The improvement in skill level has been tangible and if you ask any of our senior women’s coaches they will tell you the same thing.

I have been to a lot of games this year. Each week, I have focused on a specific aspect whereby feedback is required for the continued planning and progression of the competition.

During the grading rounds, my main aim was to gauge where each team was in its development and where they sat in comparison to the other teams. We strove to provide a competitive balance in each grade to make the competition enjoyable and fair.

For the next few rounds, the focus was on the game itself. How was it evolving? Were we developing an enjoyable, sustainable style of game which will encourage players to join our competition and spectators to come along?

With the inaugural women’s VAFA representative match approaching, I have turned my attention in the past few weeks from the macro approach to watching the players themselves.

Last week I noticed something unmistakable had arrived and announced itself to our women’s game: confidence.

We all talk about things like planning, talent, hard work and mental toughness.  On the sporting field you can have all these, but to be successful, confidence is the key ingredient.

Remember, most of our women players have never played before. Many of our new players have plenty of ability and now they are building belief in that ability.

I now see women, instead of kicking the ball off the ground, putting their head over it to grab the ball off the turf and take off with it, maybe even with a bounce or two. Overhead marking is becoming commonplace. They have practised it at training and now they are trying it out on field, under pressure, and finding out “Hey, I can do this!”.  When kicking for goal, the instinct is changing from hoping it goes through to knowing it’s going to go through.

Last week I witnessed a player swoop on the ball near the boundary and, with a couple of opponents bearing down on her, she took a bounce and drilled the ball from just inside the boundary straight through the middle of the big sticks. She meant it. She was ecstatic and the pure joy was exhilarating.

Good coaches identify, capitalise and build on this belief. The confident players become role models and their teammates realise that they can give it a go as well. When that player kicked that superb goal from the boundary she showed her teammates what can be done. In the early stages of our flourishing VAFA Women’s competition confidence is a powerful tool in any armoury.

As Vince Lombardi said, confidence is contagious. Bring on the infection!