More than winning
WINNING matches will form only part of the battle for Geelong’s AFLW team this year, according to chief executive Brian Cook, who says off-field success is equally crucial to how well the Cats perform on the field.
Big crowds, strong results and burgeoning membership are all key indicators, of course.
But for Cook, ensuring the popularity of the women’s side is growing and its connection to the community continues to increase is what matters just as much.
“For us it is a combination of things, it is not just one target we have,” Cook said.
“The on-field performance is really important and we were proud of our girls with how they went in their first year, so it would be good to finish top four again.
“But there is also the issues around our players being an inspiration to the children and the youth, particularly in the region.
“That is really important to us and the impact they have on the community.
“We still want to have good crowds as well and outside of finals we had the highest average home crowd — admittedly we had close to 20,000 against Collingwood, which put that up — but for us it is a combination of winning games and gaining popularity within the region. They are the two priorities for us, and hopefully we go as far as we can. Whether we win a grand final, you always hope for that, but we will just have to wait and see.”
Having worked tirelessly to earn an AFLW licence, Cook was as proud as anyone when Geelong shocked the competition to finish as preliminary finalists in its inaugural season.
It followed a run of successful years in the VFLW.
While the off-field battle will be fought by Cook and his team, he knows that on it, the Cats will be looking to raise the bar yet again.
“This has been a three-year journey so far, and this is the fourth,” Cook said. “It has taken some time, but we just finished out of the finals in our first year in VFLW, we came second in our second year in the VFLW and then year three in our first year in AFLW we made a preliminary final.
“We had three wonderful games last year, against Collingwood, Carlton and Brisbane; so this year we will set the bar high because we have performed really well in our first three years. We don’t see year four being any different.
“We have recruited locally, which is part of our brand because we want to be seen as a popular local and regional team that wins games — that is what we are about.”