THE Western Bulldogs might have been eliminated in the first round of finals last year, but forward coach Kate McCarthy made the team’s Season 8 aspirations as clear as possible.

“Our goal is to win the premiership,” she said.

“The footy cliché is ‘one week at a time’ so we’re not going to look that far ahead, but it’s definitely the aim. We are here to win and that’s what we’re all working towards and that’s why we’re putting in the effort to get our bodies ready and be resilient enough to win it all.”

After last year’s heartbreaking result, McCarthy says the team has reflected on what went wrong in that elimination final and will be using it to improve this season.

“It made us realise as a group, we’re pretty slow starters,” she said. “So we’ve been focussing on starting training sessions well. Also knowing our game style stacks up against the best in the competition, and it got us to the first round of finals.”

“Hopefully this season, that will be our foundation and hold us in good stead. We want to keep focussing on the things that made us so good last season, but we also want to take things to the next level. We want to get our running game going more and that’s definitely showing during our match simulation.”

The Bulldogs have built one of the strongest young lists in the competition, stacked full of talent that are yet to reach their peaks.

 “As soon as you get up around the 25-30 game mark in women’s footy, that’s when you really get to understand the game and understand your own game,” she said. “You can work towards making the biggest impact possible on the field.”

With a number of players looking to take the next step in their development, McCarthy said there have been a lot of impressive performances on the track.

“Isabelle Pritchard has been impressive,” she said. “Her workrate and desire to get better is fantastic.”

“The same can be said about Sarah Hartwig. She’s been phenomenal. She’s played a lot of her career as a defender and then made the switch forward midway through last year because we were looking for something else up forward. She can play tall or small, and can kick off both feet because she is just so skilful.

“Gabrielle Newton has been getting some more continuity with her training and her forward craft has caught the eye. She’s such an athlete, launching at the footy or playing one on one, but can also go into the midfield. The usual suspects are also impressing as always.

“Being able to train with the likes of Ellie Blackburn and Kirsty Lamb has been fantastic and they’re impressive with their professionalism as well.”

Speaking about last year’s draft crop, McCarthy explained one of the key aspects of how the Bulldogs have built their list.

“We love to keep that core group together,” she said. We try to ensure that they want to stay at the club because we want them to stay too.

“It was a tough draft because we didn’t know what the availability would be seeing as it was an over age draft. I think the girls we picked are exactly what we were after.

“Dominique Carruthers can run all day and she can either win the ball at the source or do something on the receiving end of it. Brianna McFarlane can play essentially anywhere on the field and Maggie Gorham has worked really hard on her fitness in the last few seasons and it’s really shown at training. Her willingness to learn has been a real key too.

“Apart from those three it’s really the same group as last year because we had a really young team and we are keen to keep building on that from year to year. It also makes the club a really sustainable place when you don’t have high player turnover and getting success as the girls did last year.”

Speaking on her own coaching journey, McCarthy said the transition from playing has been an eye-opening experience.

“I love it.” she said. “I know that I should’ve done this a few years ago. A few of my later seasons I was trying to coach as well as trying to play, especially last season being in a new team with a lot of young girls.

“I was doing that in the forward line but also still trying to work on my own game which can be quite challenging. Being able to focus on the coaching and use all the things I have learned in the media in terms of game analysis and what I learned as a player. It gives me a good perspective of what kind of pressure the girls are under and where the game has gone in the last few years in terms of how we can improve.

“We would love to try something out that hasn’t been done before or is lacking in the women’s game as well.”