AS HISTORY has shown in the past three seasons, it is tough being the new kids on the block. East Perth is the latest team to join the WAFL Women’s and coach Jason Bloom said the club knows it will be a “challenging” road, but the Royals are determined to “build the right foundations” in order to succeed long-term.

East Perth follows in the footsteps of West Perth (winless first season in 2022) and South Fremantle (winless in first two seasons 2020-21) but Bloom said the focus for the club as a whole was not about the end result.

“KPI wise from the club, they’re not terribly focused on wins or losses this year, it’s more about building the right foundations to make sure that we have long-term success and become a destination club,” Bloom said.

“That’s a bit refreshing too, there’s not a lot of pressure on me to go out there to get wins day one which is great, and it just allows us the time and freedom and capacity to work on what we feel is important to female football.”

Bloom said the club had been incredibly generous in helping resource the female program to the extent of the men’s, if not more which “is a great place to be”. The road of creating a WAFL Women’s League side from scratch has not been an overnight process.

A shortlist of three key people at the Royals including Bloom reached out to the West Australian Football Commission (WAFC) and began brainstorming on what the best way to go about creating and entering a team in the league.

“We pretty much built everything from the back of house first before the actual League side even formulated or even before we had a meeting before we even had a meeting with a footy commission, which was an odd way of doing it but a really strong way for us,” Bloom said.

“We were really able to learn from a distance looking at how West Perth and South Freo entered the competition, how they did it and how they obviously performed in their first year and two years for South.”

Bloom and the background staff at the Royals made a point of recruiting heavily from across the WAFL Women’s in order to get some experienced players, as well as bigger bodies to avoid “punching up our Rogers Girls into a League side”.

They searched high and low for players for around 14 months before the first League preseason even began, with a mix of local football, Rogers Cup and WAFL Women’s players who might be good fits for the inaugural process, and then formulated a list and began player interviews.

“(It was) a lengthy process, not as quick or slapped together as it may seem, but I think for us that will give us not necessarily a better start of the last two teams entering the competition but it gives us a really good grounding to drive a really solid culture from day one because we do have some experienced players,” Bloom said.

East Perth has managed to find at least one player from six of the other seven clubs, including captain Jessica Valvasori, a 36-year-old natural leader out of Claremont who played in the Tigers’ Reserves premiership last season. She has crossed to the Royals alongside Taylah Suda, Julia Uhe and Marlee Hedley who all played in that Reserves premiership side.

“Jess Valvasori has turned back the clock,” Bloom said. “The captain is the oldest player on our list and one of the fittest, agile and biggest contributors in match sim.”

Valvasori is not the only player tearing up the track in preseason, with the 32-year-old Uhe providing “elite” training standards and intensity not only for herself, but also her younger teammates. From a younger standpoint, 18-year-old Hannah Challender – who is ageing out of the Royals’ Rogers Cup program – alongside Swan Districts recruit and form West Australian state representative Mel Hardy have also been impressing.

“She (Challender) improved her PB on her 2km time trial by 2:57 which i know sounds ludicrous but she did a lot of work at the Christmas break,” Bloom said. “She’s another key forward, quite tall, super agile, clean hands. Excited to see her, she can take a good contested mark and I’ll put money on this one, if she takes a mark 40 or 45 on the 45 she’s definitely looking to have the shot, she’s not looking to pass that one.

“Mel Hardy she was a Rogers Cup player with us originally, we released her to the Swans to get some League time. She’s come back and hasn’t missed a beat. Silk skills, really solid lockdown defender. Starting to work on her pace so hopefully we’ll be able to push her up into the midfield as well.”

Hardy is just one of many stories of players who might have been in Royals colours at WAFLW level had there been a League side at the time. Recently drafted Ella Roberts came from the East Perth zone but went to Peel Thunder to play in back-to-back flags, while it was a similar story for Swan Districts duo Mikayla Morrison (now Fremantle) and Shanae Davison (West Coast). That is beginning to change, with Holly Gill a perfect example of a junior Royal who could make history.

“Holly has actually committed and moving up to Perth now so she can engage with the program on a weekly basis, train with the team, be available every week,” Bloom said. “To secure a talent like Holly, awesome that she come from a country zone as well. She’ll be touted to play on and be in the AFLW at some point, so will be the first one to represent East Perth when that time comes.

“We’re really happy we can support that pathway and development all the way through now.”

Over-age State Academy member Ruby Burgess is the other Royal who has developed plenty over the years, and gone from being a “bit shy” to being comfortable with the playing group and coaches.

“Her strength has probably been one of her biggest areas of improvement, she can take the body contact a little bit more in the ruck, still relatively agile across the ground as well,” Bloom said. “With Ruby the next step for her is again giving her that secondary position so when she’s eligible she becomes a bit more of a draft target because she can play multiple roles.

“I think with Holly playing off half-back, we’ll give Rubes some exposure in the forwardline and just work on her contested marking and fingers crossed she can rest up forward, take a couple of clunks and kick a couple of snags.”

Gill and Burgess are among five “genuine ruck options” which is why they will likely play at respective ends, with the Royals a somewhat land of the giants and flushed with tall talent. Though they have enough key position players to share around, Bloom said the key was in getting the importance placed in “culture and inclusivity” for the club, which he is happy with across the board.

As for knowing that around just a dozen of the Royals list was born before 2000, Bloom said it was “exciting” for the bulk of the playing list.

“They’ve obviously especially some of the Rogers girls who have aged out, they knew that their path was going to be into our inaugural side because we had that earmarked from day one when we started Rogers,” Bloom said.

“2024 was going to be our acceptable latest start time for the club so we got it a year early. The good thing is that with having the younger contingent mixed with some of the older ladies and the PFL (Perth Football League) ladies, they’re really supportive of one another.”

Heading into Round 1, East Perth takes on West Perth in a match that will make history given neither side has registered a WAFL Women’s League win. Over the preseason, West Perth ran out 52-0 winners in a trial match, though with players missing from both sides, Bloom said it was “really hard to analyse the scoreline part of the game”.

“I thought there were times where we competed really well,” he said. “We got the first clearance of the game so I was pretty chuffed with that. probably lacked a bit of accountability, two-way running out of the midfield. But again that was more of a personnel issue rather than a planning issue.

“I think there’s plenty to take out of the game, and a few things we took back to training just the way we were hitting up at the footy, the work we were doing without the footy just needed a tweak as well.

I know West Perth didn’t put out their strongest side either, Round 1 I’m just really relishing the challenge, couldn’t ask for any better than the Derby for the first game in the League. We get to drive that a little bit, market it a little bit as well. Hope we get a few more numbers in the crowd.”

As for the 2023 season in entirety, Bloom said the goal from the club and the playing group was to follow the East Perth motto in the Royals’ clubrooms of “never give up”.

“As long as we can walk away from a game regardless of a result, and know that every player’s attitude and effort is where it needed to be and what we’ve driven to expect from them at training,” Bloom said. “We want to see a lot of fundamental development, just with skill execution and our contest and our intensity is what we want to be known for.

“Win, lose or draw, we want the competition to know that they’ve played each week and they’re going to go away feeling it, knowing it and understanding it we are here for a long time and we are going to drive for extended success long-term.”