IT WOULD be impossible to deny the hurt that comes with losing a grand final after going through the regular season undefeated, but East Fremantle is already gearing up for another title challenge in 2023. WAFLW Talent and Operations Manager Brenton Boddington said the club had made sure the playing group was focused on going one better in the upcoming season, without lingering too much in the past.

“We made the point pretty early on in the off-season with Steph Walding our new League coach, there were a lot of positives to take away from last year,” Boddington said. “That’s not to deny the hurt and the disappointment from the grand final loss that’s pretty evident. From the players through to the coaches and staff. “You’ve got to move on at some point, and time did that and everyone regrouped in the off-season.”

Though the heartbreak of missing out on ultimate glory might be a sign to make wholesale changes, Boddington said it was a mix of keeping what worked, but also finding ways to improve to ensure the rest of the competition did not leapfrog the Sharks.

“We’d be crazy to change and go out and throw everything away, with what we did last year,” Boddington said. “But also be mindful that if we think we’re just going to roll on and keep doing what we’re doing and not looking to improve across all parts of our program, then there will be other teams that go past us because the competition is evolving every year and if we rest on our laurels from last year, others will go past us.

“I think we’ve done that pretty well, we’ve retained a core group of players from last year and that’s really helped us with that messaging throughout the playing group and we’re already finding ways of getting better across all parts of what we do and think that will hold us in good stead as we go along throughout the year.”

East Fremantle wants to play its best footy at the pointy end of the season, and has plenty of ways to improve on its 2022 effort. Though the Sharks missed out on a League flag, East Fremantle claimed its maiden Rogers Cup premiership. Though Boddington said like all clubs that Rogers Cup was “heavily focused on developing players” to ultimately play at League level, it was exciting to come away from the win.

From that premiership a number of Rogers Cup graduates, as well as still-eligible talents trained with the League side over the off-season, which has a number of them competing for a spot in the senior side.

“A fair few of those players have moved into a senior preseason, and some have got that experience and dropped back down into our Youth Girls squad, but a fair few have stayed up and really impressed over preseason so they’ve continued on training with the League squad, and a number of them will put their hand up for Round 1,” Boddington said.

East Fremantle is not short on talented youth, with AFLW Academy member Georgie Cleaver and top-age state representative Anjelique Raison among the draft-eligible players at the end of the year, while Zippy Fish and Taya Chambers are names to watch out for next year.

“The 05s their draft year at the end of this year, Georgie (Cleaver), Anjo (Raison) and we have Taya Palmer out of our Midwest Female Academy whose moved into that program, so that’s pretty special story in itself, being a midwest player and playing good football at Rogers Cup level and being rewarded with her place in that program,” Boddington said.

“Those three girls their draft at the end of this season. Then the three bottom-agers who are next year’s crop in (Zippy) Fish, (Taya) Chambers and Tiani Teakle as well. It’s always managing state programs, but also multi-sport athletes such as Georgie and Anjo in particular play other sports as well, so there’s always a fair bit of managing there.”

Luckily for East Fremantle and the seven other WAFLW clubs, just one match – a contest against South Australia on April 30 – will clash with their League commitments. The other two national carnival games will take place post-season.

“The State Academy and championships this year, the game in WA in late April is the one game during the season, and then they’ve got the two others after the WAFLW season, so it’s not too much of a clash this year,” Boddington said.

“They’ll recommence with their State Academy program soon and train with them and balance their training with our sessions as well and play for us, and as we get closer to that championships game in late April, they’ll be with the State Academy and preparing for that game, then they’ll be back with us for the remainder of the WAFLW season.”

Though the likes of Cleaver, Raison, Fish and Chambers are well known to WAFLW watchers, there are plenty of Rogers Cup talents who are pushing for League spots. When asked which players are impressing over the preseason off the back of last year’s Rogers Cup campaign, Boddington named a trio of talents to keep an eye on. The first one that came to mind was Rogers Cup top-age midfielder Caylen Crook.

“She’s done a whole preseason with the League squad and has played in our two preseason games at this point in time and it’s a tough midfield to break into for us at League level, but she’s certainly done her chances no harm,” Boddington said. “Attacks the footy really well, can win her own ball and uses her hands really well out of the stoppage, she’s one for sure to keep an eye on.”

Looking to the taller end of the scale, Boddington named athletic, mobile ruck/forward Madison Evans, who is a 176cm bottom-ager.

“She won our best on ground award in last year’s youth girls grand final,” he said. “She’s a co-captain for our Rogers Cup squad. Trained with the League over Christmas and over Summer and really showed her leadership skills and didn’t do anything wrong in a sense, it was just more so where we think she’ll play early in the season, likely at Youth Girls level, so that was the decision to push her back down to Rogers, but she is one for sure to keep an eye on.

The other one was small forward Grace Freeman who Boddington said the Sharks were keen to develop into a dual forward/midfielder with a focus on working up the ground this year.

“She showed last year as one of the better small forwards in the Rogers Cup competition, she is clean below her knees and just has a really good goal sense, inside 50 and that’s similar to Taya Palmer who hasn’t played at League level, bus is in the State 18s,” he said. “She hasn’t played at that level yet but she’s coming back from a groin and when she’s healthy and back training then she’ll be every chance of putting her hand up for League selection this year.”

Round 1 is just days away, with East Fremantle returning to Claremont, where the Sharks last played a League game. Though there might be some heartache from the grand final loss, Boddington said 2022 “was in the books” and it was all about focusing on 2023.

“There’s not much we can do to change last year’s grand final result, that’s done and dusted,” he said. “I think each player that will play on that day will have a different mindset. There will be some who played in that game from last year and there’d be a fair few players who didn’t, so I don’t think it will be a really big factor, it will just be a great test for us coming up against Claremont on their home deck in Round 1 to see where we’re at.”