By Fitzroy-ACU Senior Women's Coach Michael Harper

As the pain of a Grand Final loss begins to subside, the overwhelming sense of a successful season both and off the field is beginning to take its place.

Congratulations to Scotch for winning the premiership, I'm sure we will learn from the game and will go back to the drawing board on all levels to see where we can continue to improve and ensure our future teams are competitive in Premier.
I felt we just didn’t get our game up and going in the Grand Final, we failed to open up the game and played directly down the lines. This played into the opposition’s hands – only scoring two goals in any game makes it hard to walk away with a win.

Nobody will ever doubt our endeavour, but only one side wins the chocolates and last Sunday wasn’t our day.

Reflecting back over the year, we've certainly had a great one. Our preseason was well attended and at one stage it felt like players were dropping out of the trees. The new additions were a mix of senior players and reserves players, effectively stocking up both playing lists with talent and enthusiasm.

The foundation was built on skill training/fitness/game sense and club connections. We invited past players and coaches and members of the club involved with the women’s program to present jumpers to all our debutants playing their first senior game for the club. This provided us with a purposeful reason to represent the Fitzroy Football Club and keep the connection to the club strong.

As the season progressed and our team started to settle, favourable results started to come our way and we felt the group was going to be competitive with a good chance of playing finals come the end of the season.

The participation and attendance numbers at training and club events reflected the enormous buy in from the group. Our skills improved and solid friendships formed. We experienced an enormous amount of special moments along the journey including long term injury players returning to play, youth players playing for the Senior and Reserve teams, many players celebrating milestones, playing in front of big crowds, and enjoying our fair share of wins along the way.

On behalf of the coaching group, I'd like to thank all the players, trainers, committee, team managers, match day staff and supporters. We hope you have enjoyed the ride as much as we have and are keen for you to join us again in 2023.

Lastly, to our Senior and Reserves leadership group, “WOW”. From our first James Podsiadly leadership seminar, to the post Grand Final speeches, your commitment, care and management of the playing group was and is incredible. Individually we all have our strengths and weaknesses, but collectively you managed to create a strong and dedicated team. The results are testament to your efforts.