You only get one chance to make a first impression, and Crows women’s coach Bec Goddard and her girls are ready to be on the right side of history in the Club's AFLW season opener.
The team will head out onto Thebarton Oval as favourites for their momentous first match against Greater Western Sydney on Saturday.
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After months of build up and buzz surrounding the new AFL Women's Competition, the side is ready to let their skills do the talking.
“We think it’ll be fast Crows football,” Goddard said at the first ever pre-match press conference.
“We’re going to be focussing on our attack on the ball, and our attack on the player with the ball.”
It’s a moment made all the more meaningful by playing at home in Adelaide, with free entry into the ground.
“I love Thebby Oval. It suits our runners. We’re quick and we’re ready to run,” Goddard said.
“We hope that with our speed, we’re going to win the contested ball and kick a lot of goals.”
Goddard is particularly pleased that the team is coming into their first game with a clean bill of health.
“The fact that our list is 100% healthy and we could select any of them for this weekend is a good indication that we’re ready,” she said.
It’s even more impressive when you consider that most girls, who used to train once or twice a week at club or local level, took on a quadrupled workload for the AFLW.
“It’s a credit to our strength and conditioning staff and the coaches as to the way they’ve managed the load of the players, their mental state, their rehab.”
In a short seven-week season, which will see the top two teams at the end make the Grand Final, team selection is particularly important.
“For the first season, you want to put out the best team that you possibly can,” Goddard said.
“I hear a lot about other clubs drafting for youth, but I don’t think that is going to have an impact over seven games."
Goddard is confident that the Crows squad, split between Adelaide and Darwin, has the depth to make an immediate impact in the first season.
“We drafted them all for a reason. We didn’t base that on age, we based that on the qualities that they brought to the Adelaide Crows,” she said.
“We’re really comfortable with where everyone sits and how they fit into the team.”
The race for selection is so tight, in fact, that players like Abbey Holmes and Jasmine Anderson were “really stiff to miss out this weekend,” according to Goddard.
“All of our 27 players will play a game this year, I’m really confident about that,” she said.
There’s an element of the unknown for fans heading into the opening round, but the coach has certainly done her homework.
“With my background coming from NSW and ACT, I know a fair bit about the depth of the GWS squad and where they sit,” she said.
“We think that we’ve got the match ups right coming into Round One and we’re putting the best team out there to play them.”
On the eve of history, Goddard is optimistic about what the women can achieve tomorrow, and in the future.
“Good luck is a side effect of preparation. No luck, just best wishes, that’s all we need!” she said.
At last, a new group of heroes in the Australian sporting landscape will make their debut this weekend.
“We’ve had a number of historic moments along the way,” Goddard said.
At the Crows’ first pre-season training last November, for instance, she gathered the team together and told them, “We don’t get nervous, we get ready.”
And at last night’s season launch, the message was the same but the wait is finally over. “We’re not nervous, we’re ready.”
