WOMEN ON BOARD AT CATTERY
PLUS: WHAT CATS WILL WANT FOR KELLY
THE Geelong Football Club has moved to further strengthen its reputation as one of the country’s leading sporting clubs for the promotion of women in sport, by recognising the female players who have represented it in VFLW and AFLW competitions.
The Cats have an honour board in their clubrooms dedicated to every footballer that has played for the club in the VFA, VFL and AFL, but have now added boards for their female players, including the pioneers from their first women’s team.
One of the club’s first female players, Renee Garing, said it was something she and her teammates were delighted to see introduced at Geelong.
“It is really cool because they have the VFLW pioneers there from our inaugural team and now they have put in the AFLW one,” Garing said.
“So it is pretty cool when you look up on the board and there are all of those names dating back to Geelong’s early days.
“To think that our names will be there forever, it is pretty hard to get your head around. The men’s boards would not have been up back in the day so to walk past you do think of that.
“We walk past it on the way on to the ground and back to the gym, and when you stop and think of what that resembles and that we are etched in history at the Geelong footy club, it is hard to get your head around.”
Garing was rested for the VFLW clash last week but is hoping to play a role in getting the Cats into finals this week when it meets 12th placed Carlton.
Geelong would need to win and hope that either Collingwood defeats Hawthorn or NT Thunder upsets Melbourne Uni if it is to play finals but Garing said the Blues would be no pushovers.
“Carlton is not going to be an easy team by any means,” she said. “It very likely they are going to play a few AFLW girls — and yes they are towards the bottom of the ladder — but it is always hard against them no matter where we are sitting.”