{"id":40491,"date":"2018-09-25T17:20:51","date_gmt":"2018-09-25T06:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.afldraftcentral.com.au\/?p=40491"},"modified":"2018-09-25T17:20:51","modified_gmt":"2018-09-25T06:20:51","slug":"zero-players-coaches-and-support-staff-becomes-one-premiership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/2018\/09\/25\/zero-players-coaches-and-support-staff-becomes-one-premiership\/","title":{"rendered":"Zero players, coaches and support staff becomes one premiership"},"content":{"rendered":"

HAWTHORN Victorian Football League (VFL) Women\u2019s premiership coach, <\/span>Patrick Hill <\/b>had to build the club up from scratch when he first walked through the doors. <\/span><\/p>\n

He had no players, coaches or support staff on board, and was all of a sudden thrown into the deep end to create a team. After the club\u2019s first trial day and training session, Hill admits he was worried. But now after an exciting blend of experience and youth culminating in a premiership, he says he couldn\u2019t be happier. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c(In) the first training session, I didn\u2019t know what I\u2019d gotten myself into,\u201d Hill said. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t great but we built slowly and slowly then just added some experience this year which has just changed our team around. \u201cThey played a great style last year and they were very compliant in what they wanted to do but we just needed the mature heads and some more physical bodies out there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The premiership also required some work behind the scenes from the coach himself, who is now 16 years into his coaching career.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI remember working on a game style that would work on this ground (Etihad Stadium) all year and even last year,\u201d he said. \u201cTo get here and be able to do it, I\u2019m rapt.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Another person who is rapt is Hawthorn President, <\/span>Jeff Kennett. <\/b>Hill says Kennett has been his side\u2019s number one supporter all year. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe really gets around the girls, he loves them as I do and it\u2019s great to see someone of his age and where he\u2019s come from to really embrace women\u2019s footy for what it is and it\u2019s beautiful,\u201d the Hawthorn VFLW coach said. <\/span><\/p>\n

Together, Hill and Kennett are out to prove a point that the Hawthorn Football Club is completely invested in women\u2019s football. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI still see on social media, there\u2019s this thought process out there that we don\u2019t care and we haven\u2019t cared about women\u2019s footy and we\u2019re sort of late to the party and we don\u2019t really care anyway,\u201d Hill said. \u201cNothing could be further from the truth, we really wanted to come out here today and show that not only do we care about women\u2019s footy, but we care about women\u2019s issues. \u201cWe really want to excel in this as well.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The players have also played a part in caring for each other, with Hill admitting that forward, <\/span>Phoebe McWilliams <\/b>has been one of the players who has bonded with the younger girls in the side. This has benefited the likes of Eastern Ranges duo, <\/span>Mikala Cann <\/b>and <\/span>Emerson Woods, <\/b>and former Vic Metro representative, <\/span>Olivia Flanagan, <\/b>who Hill says have been outstanding this season. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYoung Mikala Cann, we call her the bull and she just loves the contest,\u201d he said. \u201cShe\u2019s an extremely coachable player and she slotted straight into our midfield. \u201cEmerson Woods just runs all day and even<\/span> Liv Flanagan, we were able to get her up today after doing a hammy in Darwin, she re-twinged it again a couple of weeks ago and we thought the dream was over. \u201cBut for her to get up and get through and play an important role for us was fantastic. \u201cThey had youthful exuberance, they had some real vibe around the group. \u201cPhoebe McWilliams has really taken to them and they\u2019ve really taken to her. \u201cIt\u2019s been fantastic to watch those relationships develop.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, it was hard to go past <\/span>Chantella Perera\u2019s <\/b>game on the day, with the defender taking home the Lisa Hardeman medal for the best on ground. Hill was not only impressed with her game at Etihad Stadium, but also praises her consistent efforts throughout the year. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe was fantastic last year, she played on all the best players in the league and never got beaten once,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe <\/span>Chloe Molloy<\/b> at the start of this year kicked some nice goals, but today I thought she added the offensive side to her game. \u201cShe\u2019s really cool and composed with the ball, her skills were great and she\u2019s just a great athlete. \u201cShe\u2019s been a champion WNBL player and now she\u2019s a VFLW premiership player. \u201cIt just shows how good women are when you give them the opportunity.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HAWTHORN Victorian Football League (VFL) Women\u2019s premiership coach, Patrick Hill had to build the club up from scratch when he first walked through the doors. He had no players, coaches or support staff on board, and was all of a sudden thrown into the deep end to create a team. After the club\u2019s first trial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":40480,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[278,8,3121,137],"tags":[4890,3277,6964,3278,6952,3035],"class_list":["post-40491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature-articles","category-news","category-vflw","category-womens","tag-chantella-perera","tag-emerson-woods","tag-jeff-kennett","tag-mikala-cann","tag-patrick-hill","tag-phoebe-mcwilliams"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}