AFTER a surprise finals berth in 2022, the South Adelaide coach Rick Watts is optimistic about his side going deeper in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) Women’s this year.

Twelve months ago Watts said he had low expectations based on a high turnover of players – and multiple anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries – over the off-season, but that confidence is very different heading into the 2023 season.

“We’ve made it (finals) every year since our inception,” Watts said. “I think realistically, we’re probably between the second and fourth best team in the competition on the paper and we’ve shown that we can challenge the top two teams already and we’re able to do it last year without a lot of talent. We’re definitely looking to push top two and make another grand final is our goal.

“If we can go one better, beautiful, but we were basically on a rebound last year, we’ve aggressively recruited, we’ve got the most AFL players to come back into our side out of any team in the comp which will be awesome.”

Watts said though the Panthers did not have the high volume of players drafted as previous seasons – forward Jess Waterhouse was still signed by the Crows – or individual accolades, he was incredibly proud of the group. He cited the “adversity we faced” which involved a number of injuries to key position players, and said to still make finals was a “huge success” for the women’s program.

“By Round 3 we’d lost our entire spine and our backup ruck and also our captain Brianna Wedding, so we really were diminished of talent and were scraping through at that stage to even make finals or even be competitive,” Watts said. “Rushed to make finals and we beat six out of the eight teams and came within a point of Glenelg and within a goal of North Adelaide, we say it was a huge success.”

Wedding – now operating under her newly married name of Cleggett – injured her knee in the opening month of the season last year, and while initially penciled in for Round 7 or 8, Watts believes she could be as early as Round 5 or 6 at this stage. Her ACL companions in Jorja Hooper and Soriah Moon are already up and about preparing for selection.

Unfortunately the Panthers will be minus incredible young talent Shae Archbold in 2023 due to an ACL. Despite that fact, Watts was incredibly confident in 2023 largely due to the work on the training track and form on-field in the trial matches.

“It’s actually probably the most promising start to a preseason that we’ve had and coming into Round 1, we’re probably better placed and I feel like we have been and that’s including the two years we won the premiership,” Watts said.

“You can’t read too much into trial games but we played both grand finalists from last year and we should have beaten Sturt by three or four goals but made a huge amount of mistakes late in the game and obviously drew with North after kicking 2.10 and four out on the fulls making the game two huge mistakes.”

The Panthers were still minus reigning co-best and fairest winner Gypsy Schirmer as well as a number of Pinktail talents such as Caitlin Couch who has been burning up the track back home in the Northern Territory. Though plenty of young ones coming through the Panthers lineup, Watts named Hooper, as well as Melissa Anderson and Jacinda Schunselaar as ones to watch this season. The two top-agers are part of the State Academy and have the potential to fill roles at senior level

South Adelaide will be hoping to back up its trial match form against Sturt when it hosts the Double Blues at Flinders University Stadium on February 18 from 6:30pm to kick-off its 2023 campaign.