By JARROD POTTER
A FAMILIAR face will be at the helm of Cranbourne Women’s Football Club this season as assistant coach Kris Smith steps up to the VWFL top job.
With 2014 coach Shaun Smith heading up to Bendigo for work opportunities, Kris Smith was keen to take the reins.
The former Berwick/Cranbourne assistant coach has been an integral part of the south-east women’s football community and is ready to help push Cranbourne back up the ladder.
“It’s good – taking on the top job is an interesting one,” Smith said.
“It’s surprising as I wasn’t expecting it – was expecting Shaun to be here this year – but he got that job at the Bendigo Hospital and that was the end of it.”
It wasn’t just the playing group at Berwick and Cranbourne that benefited from Shaun Smith’s tutelage as Kris Smith honed his own coaching based off advice from the former Melbourne spring heel and prior Berwick WFC coach Darren Logan.
“Learned plenty of him (Smith) and learned plenty of Loges – Darren Logan – the previous coach before him as well – he was the coach of Berwick before I started there and the two of them together taught me plenty,” Smith said.
“Just about club culture, how to be organised, run great training sessions – just the regular stuff you think you know, but you don’t really know until you get there.”
Recruiting has gone well for the Eagles, with former Melbourne Uni player Tess McAvoy topping the list while gun duo Danielle Hardiman and Bianca Jakobsson seem to have put their sidelining long-term injuries behind them.
Kirsten Macleod (shoulder) is the only major injury carried over from the pre-season, but she hopes to return to the blue and gold jumper by Round 3.
Youth Girls players’ Hayley Wildes and Brittany Maroney round out the new recruits as they join the senior side from the South East Juniors competition.
With numbers ballooning out towards 50 players, the club is also considering putting a third team into the VWFL in 2016.
Cranbourne’s second VWFL season is set to kick off as its Division-1 team clashes against St Kilda Sharks at 12pm Sunday 12 April at the Peanut Farm Reserve.
