Any lingering thought that interest in the women’s game was just little more than a phase is swiftly dismissed by reigning TWL premiership coach Alex Gibbins.
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“It just hasn’t even peaked yet, either,” Gibbins said.
“There’s more regional teams now like Deloraine putting in a junior team and that competition has grown.
“On top of that, we’ve got North Melbourne basing itself out of the North next year.
“So girls are going to be growing up around North Melbourne in Launceston.
“There’s more growth to come in the coming years.”
Doubts are easily erased on how serious Launceston will be this year when the women are spotted working hard on the training track in early summer last year.
The players were quick to start preseason by the end of November – barely even a fortnight after their TSL counterparts were headed back onto Windsor Park.
That’s without considering that the TWL season is still months away, scheduled to commence in late April.
After completing eight full sessions, the Blues resume from a break on January 30.
“You get new faces turn up, which we’re still in that rung now,” Gibbins said.
“We’ll still bring in new players through the month of February as well.
“When you’ve got some new girls come along, we’ve got to introduce them to some skills and see how they go with the ball early.
“We started early last year as well, but we only got more serious after Christmas.”
Abbey Green was one who walked off the street and into the clubrooms last February.
The Blues giant six months later went on to incredibly win the club best and fairest.
“We’re expecting a few more because the AFLW is starting in two weeks and what happened last year is that we got another surge of recruits in,” Gibbins said.
“We’ve probably got three or four girls that are going to be in our end-of-the-year team that we haven’t even met yet. Seriously, they haven’t started doing any work.”
But already the club has attracted several high-profile interest from elsewhere.
Ex-Launceston Tornadoes basketballer Brooke Thurlow is already one notable recruit to come on board.
“We’re getting some girls from other sports: netball, rowing, basketball and other athletes,” Gibbins said, “they tick quite a few of the boxes.”
North Melbourne will land in Launceston next month to hold trials for prospective and untried AFLW players.
That is exciting for Gibbins, who believed the Kangaroos’ presence will change the face of women’s sport.
The inaugural premiership has helped with that to bring a new intensity – but that’s not the only factors.
“There is a couple of reasons behind it,” Gibbins said.
“One, was that our professionalism had gone up when winning that premiership.
“Two, was that with (Blues) Daria Bannister and Courtney Webb making it to the AFLW, it actually gives the program a lot more integrity.
“There are some girls who are now absolutely smashing their PBs – it’s been a really big two months. We’ve given them individual programs outside of training and some of the times they’re getting is really exciting.”
Gibbins has counted five hopefuls that are in line to be drafted at the end of 2018, and a further three in 2019.
“They probably won’t all get drafted, but they’re hoping to,” he said.