By: Megan Hustwaite
Twitter: @MeganHustwaite
Chris Goldstraw knows just how hard grand finals are to make and win.
The 29-year-old reached the biggest stage twice, for one win and a loss, in a great career for Waverley Blues that spanned nearly two decades.
Now, in his first year of the coaching, and the club’s first year fielding a senior women’s team, the Blues are just one victory away from a grand final berth.
Waverley Blues finished the home-and-away season in third place on the ladder with a 10-3 record then won their first final last Saturday accounting for Knox.
The 30-point elimination-final result setting up a blockbuster preliminary final showdown with Mount Evelyn at Silvan on Sunday.
“Making finals has been a really fantastic reward for these girls and they’re exceeding all expectations, so to make the grand final would really be a fairy tale to be honest. It would be unbelievable,’’ Goldstraw, EFL coach of the month, said.
“They’re a really good bunch of girls, they work so hard and I’d really like for them to have that (grand final) experience.
“I played for 17-18 years and only got into a grand final twice, I won one, lost one. I know how much it meant to me so for the girls to make one in their first year would be fantastic.
“They do understand the significance of it all but also what it means as a club.
“We talk about one day coming back in 10 years and watching the Waverley Blues senior women’s team and knowing that we started that in 2017, so that’s a really big deal for us as well.”
A Waverley Blue since under-11s, Goldstraw took the coaching reins of the inaugural team after doing his knee last season. It presented a challenge, a chance to further explore coaching – he’s a school teacher with some background in coaching – and an opportunity to give back to a club that’s given him so much.
“The club wanted to start a senior women’s team, I said I was interested in the role and it’s been a rollercoaster ride from there,’’ he said.
“It’s been really nice to give back to the club that’s allowed me to play for nearly 20 years and I feel like I’ve finally been able to give something back to them.
“It’s been a pretty substantial effort to get a side up. Looking back to our first training session, late January, we had eight players turn up.
“So, it hasn’t just been working on kicking, handballing and marking because none of the girls had played footy before, but then recruiting and promotion has been another aspect of it.”
Goldstraw says the power of social media has been an absolute game changer and a key to building a new team.
“We’ve got a lot of netballers, some basketballers but through social circles I was able to get a few of my friends to play then through social media we were able to recruit a few more, the girls who came down bought friends and we’ve taken off from there.”
While skills and a game plan have been a work in progress during the season, both blossoming through winter, attitude and effort have been cornerstones since day one according to the coach.
“It’s all been driven by the girls, the girls are just fantastic – it’s really all come down to them,” Goldstraw said.
“They’re really positive, hungry for a challenge and keen to grow and learn which has been very helpful as a coach.
“At no stage have they become complacent, each week they’re ready to change and grow and I’ve been very lucky to have a bunch of girls who are happy to embrace the football club but also embrace playing footy.”
The Blues only need to think back to Round 1 to get a clear indication of their remarkable progress which has often been highlighted against more seasoned teams and players.
“Honestly our first game, we played Chirnside Park at home, and we’d be lucky to have had three marks for the whole day whereas now we’ve been able to establish our skills and we have a game plan,’’ Goldstraw said.
“In the first couple of weeks it was get the ball and kick it as far as you can and now 17 rounds later we’re able to say ‘Right, when you have the ball in this part of the ground this is where you need to go next.’
“We have direction and everyone is a leader on the ground.
“Also, the girls understanding it’s not rugby and we don’t need everyone at the contest, everyone’s got a role to play and not everyone’s going to get the ball all the time.
“That’s been a big thing – understanding your role and your role might not necessarily be the one who kicks the goal but you might be the player who shepherds or the player who talks or gives off the hand ball.
“A selfless mantra has been a really big area of growth for the girls.”
Goldstraw believes a “champion team” mindset has enabled the Blues to build valuable momentum and take it up to pace setting opponents.
“Towards the second half of the year we’ve really been able to gain some momentum, Mount Evelyn are a really classy unit and really good users of the ball and have been top all year,’’ he said.
“We beat Bayswater in Round 14 and that’s given the girls a lot of confidence. We’ve looked at this year with a bit of a checklist – at the start of the year we wanted to tick off how to kick, handball and mark and now it’s who we’ve got the next week.
“We look at Mount Ev and Bayswater with a lot of respect but we’re definitely up for the challenge and that really excites us.”
Mount Evelyn went through the home-and-away season unbeaten before suffering their first defeat of the year in the final-round against Knox. A qualifying final loss to Bayswater last weekend has The Grovers in unchartered territory.
But Goldstraw says the Blues will underestimate their preliminary final opponent at their peril.
“Mount Ev is the one box we haven’t checked yet. We met them mid-year and we’re a completely different team now,” he said.
“The growth I’ve seen from these girls since then is absolutely astonishing and I think we’re up for the challenge but there’s a reason why Mount Evelyn finished on top and that’s because they work hard also.
“It’s going to be a really good game this weekend, we worked hard enough last week to get into the prelim and I think we really deserve to be there as well.”
Last weekend’s victory has also shown the Blues that in finals anything is possible.
“We continue to surprise ourselves each week, which is fantastic, but at the same time they know it’s because they work hard, follow the rules we set for ourselves and the game plan,’’ Goldstraw said.
“We’re excited but respectfully excited because we know we’ve worked hard to get there.”