INAUGURAL Essendon AFLW coach Natalie Wood has one of the harder tasks in AFLW, turning the inaugural Essendon list into a competitive side in a very short window of time.

This is perhaps why such a focus for her during preseason has been building connections between her players, even and especially with the fluctuating numbers she has had on the track due to a number of her players playing out the season with the club’s VFLW side.

“Obviously we’ve got a number of different players from different clubs and through different systems, like from AFLW, VFLW, also NAB League, so we’ve been really focusing on connection. Obviously it’s been documented we’ve had varying numbers because we’ve allowed our VFLW players to walk in both programs for the last month [up to July 7th], which then it’s really given people opportunity when we’ve had smaller groups to build some good foundations for some strong relationships.”

When it came to the strategy surrounding which players they would target to bring into the club and onto their inaugural list, Wood said that variety in experiences was the key.

“Well there’s different rules set in place by the AFL in terms of the number of players that you could get from AFLW lists. So, the cap was 14 players, so with that in mind we set about trying to get as many high calibre AFLW players as possible, just knowing that we’d also have quite a contingent from our VFLW and also the draft. So we thought that being able to get a number of established players who’ve had different in clubs would strengthen our program. And then it got a little bit mor complex then that, so there were a certain number of points all players were allocated and then if you went over a certain number of points you lost your priority pick, so as I think we got up to eight or nine then we had to be mindful of the type of players that we were bringing in and the potential of losing one of those first two draft picks.”

This may be Wood’s first go in the hotseat of senior coach, it is not her first time coaching at AFLW level, after having previously held assistant coach roles at the Cats and Bulldogs.

Although it is hard to compare the different experiences, Wood speaks very highly of her time at the Dogs thus far.

“Yeah I guess it’s difficult to compare at times at Bulldogs because my role was so different. The one thing I probably do feel is that I’ve never felt that I’m in the right place, I’m where I need to be right now and that feels really comforting and makes me feel confident in what I’m doing. My time at Geelong and my time at the Bulldogs have given me really varied experiences and sets me up well for this role, as well as my education work that I’ve done.

“But you know there’s also a pretty terrific team around me, I can lean in on any of them at any point in time. So there’s a lots of people in there that have been in football 10 or so years at least, so being able to leverage their knowledge and expertise, I don’t feel that I’m doing it alone and the other staff that I’ve been able to bring in from a coaching perspective, and you know within AFLW that they’ve got a wide variety of experiences as well.

“So I feel that we’re really well resourced, I feel like we’ve got diversity in the way that we think and process and that’s going to allow our players to have a range of different people to lean on for different reasons.”

Wood’s main objective for the Bombers this season is pretty simple – to ensure every player improves across the season. Time will tell if that objective becomes a reality.