AHEAD of a new AFL Women’s season, Richmond’s captain Katie Brennan is talking up how ambitious she and her teammates are to build on their Season 7 achievements.

The Tigers made finals for the first time in Season 7, but Brennan said that the aim is to go even further.

“It was a really great year for us, and I think a bit of a foundation year,” Brennan said.

“We want to be up there, really ambitious, we want to be up there with what do we call it, almost the big four, the teams that we really respect so highly in Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne and North Melbourne who have been great competitors over the whole course of the AFLW.

“So we are really ambitious, we want to play amongst those teams and it was great to have our first finals experience. Off the back of some tough years in our first season not winning a game, and then just building from that point on. So we’re really bullish about wanting to continue that trend are really focused on the process of just getting better every day and having a great season ahead.”

Moving into this year, and Brennan confirmed that preseason had gone well at Tigerland, and she also enjoyed the extended break she had with not having any AFL Women’s over summer.

“It’s been really good,” Brennan said, speaking about preseason.

“It’s been nice to have our first summer off in a couple of years and the girls have had some good down time over the summer and then straight back into work and came back in really good shape and it’s been a really great preseason so far. We’ve learnt a lot, we’ve got fitter and faster and stronger like everyone else in the competition and we’ve been able to add some new additions to our list as well which we think will hold us in good stead.”

“It felt a little bit strange,” Brennan said, talking about the extended break she and the rest of the AFLW player cohort embarked on.

“I mean I think it was great to have two seasons in one year initially and to move it to this time slot, but also for everyone in this industry to have a bit of a break after the last six seasons and playing over the summer every year.

“So it was great to spend time with family and friends but also get back into work and have a great block of time to grow our list and for everyone to put in a power of work over the winter period and to be hear now heading into round one.”

Brennan was full of praise for her new team mates and what they have brought to the team.

“Our new additions have been great,” she said. “We’ve had a few of them come into our forward line as well which is an area that we wanted to boost up with Courtney Wakefield retiring, she was amazing for us over so many years.

“It’s been great to have Caitlin Greiser step into that role at full forward, and we’ve got some young key forwards developing and some high half forwards that can play midfield that have come into the list. So we’re really excited to add these new additions, and with new additions comes fresh energy and excitement and just the willingness to learn and grow and we love that about them. They’re great people and they will be great footballers as well.”

Like the rest of the competition Richmond had a few practise matches over the last few weeks, and Brennan said that her side learnt plenty from those games.

“We actually learnt a lot from our games,” she said. “We sort of tried to move our players around, talked about that versatility piece and wanting some of our players to play in different positions.

“That was a big focus for us going into both of these practise matches but we know that across the whole competition if you don’t come in firing and you’re not hard at the contest and ready to go from the start, it’s going to be hard to catch up.

“I think we started a little bit slower against St Kilda in our match practise, and then we started a little slow against GWS as well. So there’s always so much to learn from these practise matches, but I think we come back to us and what we always focus on which is playing the Richmond brand and wanting to play that for four quarters.”

Richmond’s campaign gets underway this weekend with a trip to Brisbane to take on the Lions.