MANGOPLAH-Cookardinia United-Eastlakes legend Col Roberson is confident the club's women's side will be capable of matching it with the AFL Southern Women's best as soon as next year.
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Club Hall of Famer Roberson, who played around 400 games from the early sixties to the mid eighties, will coach the Goannas' inaugural women's outfit this year.
The team had their first training run on Wednesday and Roberson, who will be assisted by current first graders Max Hanrahan and Ethan Schiller, is focusing on teach the basics.
"My main focus is just to make sure I focus on getting their skills up and the younger guys can take care of all the running," he said.
"We're trying to keep it simple at the moment, and keep if fun. We've only had one training session and there was 16 there, and there's four or five others who have committed, so we should be alright."
Establishing a women's program is one of the criteria for inclusion in a new Premier League, set to be introduced in 2023.
Riverina League-affiliated clubs Wagga Tigers, Coolamon and Turvey Park have also confirmed they will join the league, which generally kicks off in February.
"You may as well be in it now so you don't you concede more ground to the other teams who have first choice of players, and have a head start on learning the ropes," Roberson said.
"I'm pretty sure all of the new teams will be feeling their way.
"There's a couple of clubs who have been around a little while and will probably lead the way, we just need to make sure we keep our players together and within a year I think we'll start to match them.
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"You've only got to look at the AFLW and its improvement from year to year.
"We've only had one training run, there's only a couple who you could say they're definitely playing in a certain position."
The AFL Southern Women's competition was the only league in any local football code to be lucky enough to hold their finals before COVID forced competitions played later to be postponed.
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