By JARROD POTTER
DANDENONG Stingrays were missing a key part of their coaching panel this week, but Wayne Siekman had a pretty good reason for his absence.
Seikman has jetted off to Canberra with the Victoria Metro Youth Girls’ team he has taken the reins of this season and the girls will square off in Canberra this week against teams from around Australia in pursuit of the national title.
Dandenong gave him the blessing to pursue Youth Girls’ coaching last season under long-serving state coach Paul Groves, but with a new job opportunity for Groves at Calder Cannons it put in motion a chance for Siekman to take the helm.
“Last year Paul Groves was the coach and I was keen to explore coaching at the elite high performance areas and he said there was an opportunity to come on as assistant last year,” Siekman said.
“The Stingrays gave me the all clear and the go-ahead and the chance to go off with it last year and Grovesy became the senior assistant at Calder… he couldn’t commit to being head coach this year and the door opened up.”
With the Youth Girls’ national championships the premier competition for junior female footballers in Australia currently, Siekman sees his appointment as a great honour to coach the best of Victoria Metro’s talent.
“To coach a high performance team at state level is fantastic, especially for the girls as between 14-18 this is the highest level the girls can get to,” Siekman said.
“It’s the pinnacle of where these girls can get to as juniors so it’s a privilege to lead them this year.”
The last hit-out for Vic Metro before the National Championships was a practice match on ANZAC Day against Vic Country, which the Metro girls won comfortably 11.10 (76) to 1.0 (6), but the score was not relevant to Siekman and his charges.
“The main focus on (last) Friday was not to worry about the scoreboard – but our structures and game styles and the way the girls went out and executed what we were doing on the track highlighted what we’ve been doing together.
“They’re willing to learn and wanting to learn and a credit to the 27 girls going away… we’re on the right track to defend our title at the nationals next week.”
With a tough challenge against Western Australia first up, Siekman knows there isn’t any time to ease into the championships and will rely on his girls to fire up from the first bounce.
“We’ve got WA first up on Sunday which is going to be our biggest danger and they have an experienced side and we’ll have to be on our game to beat them,” Siekman said.
“If we’re ready to go, like we did on Friday, it will be in the girls’ hands what they can achieve.”
Vic Metro faced Western Australia on Sunday afternoon after the Dandenong Journal went to print.
