Photo: Rachel Bach
On Sunday, the young charges of Bayside United are set to take their first steps towards their 2017 NPLW Victoria campaign as they begin their second pre-season as a unit.
In doing so, they take with them an invaluable season of personal growth and learning under their belt from their, at times, testing inaugural campaign for the group.
They were a team younger than any other in the NPLW – barring the Senior NTC – with 11 of their 23 player senior roster under the age of 18. Under the stewardship of Graham Dudley, this group remained defiantly positive and committed to their game plan, even with results not frequenting Kingston Heath with the regularly they’d have hoped for.
It looks to be a different story for Bayside in 2017, who have targeted on-field improvement by adding experience to reinforce attributes that were lacking the season gone by and leveraging this to supplement and accentuate the rich vein of young talent coming through the ranks as they move into the second year of their three-year plan.
“The real passion we’ve had at Bayside was to ensure we had a three-year plan,” Dudley said.
“Year one was bringing through some of the younger quality girls we had here and giving them the opportunity to play, year two is making it come together. The season has carried on from the back end of last year where we kept the younger line-up to keep progressing forward.
“Some under 18’s are stepping into the senior roster full-time, and we’re also reinforced with a few more players. We have Emma Runnalls coming from Alamein FC, as well as Sienna Fogarty and a few more that’ll reinforce the areas we were weaker in 2016.
“The exciting part is that we’re carrying on the program of the squad from last year. We’ve managed to keep the core of the squad we had from last season which is really exciting moving forward. We’re all very keen on not only improving next season, but also carrying on with that positive mentality, so I’m very excited about starting again.”
Consistent results proved the makeweight for an improvement in the professionalism and club governance that was rung in with the NPLW era. Dudley posited that the leap from the old days of the WPL to now was in fact a bigger gap than first thought, which may have contributed to some degree for the on-field inconsistencies in their first season.
“The step-up for [the playing group] was greater than I had assumed,” he told when asked what he’d learnt about his inaugural season at the helm.
“Some of them have had fair experience in the WPL and the change in dynamic – the change in load and restructuring – was a little bit of a jump up from them but I’ve learned though that the quality is definitely out there.
“The key girls have really stood out and a few of them had the opportunity to trial in the W-League this season, which was a new experience. Emily Harbis will be fully recovered from her injury, and [Emma] Robers and Browny [Jamie Brown] will be strong again.”
Looking past this upcoming season, Dudley wants to continue to develop a strong organisational culture at the club, centralised around the idea of using the senior figures as a role-model for the younger age groups to aspire to, using the word ‘opportunity’ to describe what the club represents.
“The long-term plan of the club is very much developing a culture of opportunity, so we want to make sure that the 9-10 year olds that are doing the Skills Acquisition Program at Bayside have a pathway and some mentors to look up to.
“The opportunity is very apparent and an example of that is that another three under 18’s from last year come into this season’s roster – that encapsulates what we’re all about. I’ve got one very simple philosophy, which is if you’re good enough, you’re given the opportunity.
“We do co-mingle the SAP work, with the 13’s working with the 15’s, 15’s with the 18’s, 18’s with the seniors. There are no barriers with our teams and our coaches and that is a club wide philosophy.”