As AFLW and women’s football grows, the opportunities across all aspects of the industry seem boundless.

“It’s a really exciting time to be in women’s footy,” North’s AFLW high performance manager, Alex Veitch, told North Media.

“The industry is growing rapidly, and it’s exciting to see the players have the opportunity to make their own path and journey in football, where as previously they couldn’t.

“However, the female players are coming from very different backgrounds than the men. The men have come through a TAC cup system where they’ve been prepared to play AFL football.”

Veitch says the women have more varied backgrounds.

“Some of the women have come from local teams or teams that haven’t had access to coaching resources,” Veitch explained.

 “There are some players who’ve been playing at the highest level for a year or two, while others are making the transition from another sport.”

But there is a common theme amongst all players, experienced or not, male or female.

“All of the players want to get better, improve performance, and manage injury as best they can. And from our perspective enhancing strength as well as movement competency is the best way to do that,” he said.

Veitch stresses the importance of acknowledging the wide range of experience in North’s AFLW team.

“It’s really important that first and foremost the players have high performance staff that are capable of delivering programs that are specific to them,” Veitch said.

“We’ve been creating individual programs that are tailored to the players individual needs, both as players but also as people.”

With this in mind, the role of high performance manager cannot be understated.

“My job will be to oversee all the strength and conditioning, rehab, and work with the physios in collating data. And then making sure that everything is the same across our players in Victoria and Tasmania,” he explained.

With pre-season starting this week, Veitch says it’s exciting but is by no means the start of work.

“I’ve been on board full time for six months, and have been working with all the girls as they sign on,” he said.

“There’s been a wide range of players that have been in strength and conditioning programs for months leading up to pre-season, and then the girls who’ve come on more recently from the draft that we get started with right away.”

Although it’s his first season at North, Veitch already has a strong relationship with head coach, Scott Gowans, and a number of the players.

“It’s going to really help that I’ve worked with Scott previously when we were both at Diamond Creek, I think one of the most important things is to have high performance and coaching working together as team,” Veitch explained.

“I’ve also worked closely with Kate Gillespie-Jones and Dani Hardiman from when they played for Carlton and I was the high-performance manager.

“I know Sophie Abbatangelo and Ash Riddell from Diamond Creek, and have crossed paths with a lot of the other players throughout my time working in women’s footy.

“I head down to Tasmania on November 14th for the first day of pre-season, and couldn’t be more excited. It’s been a long time coming and I think we’re prepared to get started with the season.”