Barooga Hawks’ women’s and youth girls teams have strengthened their coaching structure for the upcoming 2025 season.

Following a successful foundation year at the Hawks’ nest, Kate Chapman will have help at the reins in season 2025 as she will team up with former local footballer Toby Parish, who is excited to be taking a leap into a senior coaching role.

When asked about working alongside Parish, Chapman was excited to be working with someone with grassroots footy experience, a keenness to jump on-board the women’s Aussie rules train, shares similar values and wants to continue to build the culture at the club and within its teams.

While it’s envisaged the youth girls and senior women’s teams will still do a significant amount of work together, Chapman will be coaching the former and Parish will coach the latter.

Parish was on the sidelines for several games last season supporting his sister Sasha and enjoyed passing on his knowledge and experience.

“I’d always wanted to coach once I finished playing, and the opportunity to get involved came at the perfect time,” he said.

Parish said he saw plenty of potential in the team and hoped to create a great environment to learn, improve and succeed in football, something he feels girls haven’t always had the opportunity to do.

“It’s great to see the development of women’s AFL,” he said.

“Kate is doing a wonderful job at Barooga and I feel privileged to be a part of that now, especially in the community where I grew up.”

Needless to say Parish is excited, keen and highly motivated to help make a difference at Barooga.

“The goal is to make the Barooga Hawks a real destination club for anyone wanting to be involved in women’s footy,” he said.

The off-season for the Hawks’ women’s teams has not been quiet for some players, with six of the club’s youth girls team members recently selected to represent the league in the U16 V/Line Cup which was played in Ballarat, where Tamika Muller was appointed as one of the captains.

Congratulations to the following players on your selections: Tamika Muller, Madison Knight, Miah Hood, Madelynn Price, Pip Bain and Ava Kruizinga.

Following on from the V/Line Cup the club also had several players head to the 2024 Murray Bushrangers combine event, where Nakiyah Fraser-Simmons was setting high standards.

Just days after the event Fraser-Simmons received her results, which included the top ‘Running Jump Left Hand (jumping performance)’ attempt ever recorded at the combine for her age and gender.

Fraser-Simmons’ result also ranked 72nd out of the 6000 total trials ever recorded at the Murray Bushrangers combine, for which she was congratulated by the event organisers.

The Barooga women’s teams are excited to announce some player recommitments for next season;

• Miliana Naicori – 2024 Senior Women’s captain and players player.

• Taylor Simpson – 2024 ball magnet, and crucial team member.

• Taylar Waldron – 2024 Youth Girls captain and players player.

• Nakiyah Fraser-Simmons – 2024 Youth Girls best-and-fairest and Murray Bushranger.

The Hawks are also excited to announce the commitment of 2024 Echuca United premiership player Jerrah Caruso who will be calling The Nest her home in season 2025.

Jerrah will add significant game-day experience, game-awareness and positioning skills to the youth girls team and is a known big-game player.

In season 2024 Jerrah was part of the Murray Bushrangers team and was named best-on-ground in the Interleague grand final and backed it up with a best-on-ground performance in the Goulburn Murray Youth Girls final.

As focus shifts to season 2025, look for the Barooga Hawks teams to be improving significantly in both skills and game play.

Pre-season training starts with a meet-and-greet, commitment-free, have-a-kick night at 6pm on Wednesday, November 23 at Barooga Recreation Reserve.

For more info, please contact the women’s teams at baroogawomensafl@gmail.com

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Tuesday, 10th October 2023

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