Excitement is building as the Cats prepare for their inaugural AFL Women’s season next year, and considering the players that have already signed to Geelong and the depth of young talent available, it’s all for good reason.

Geelong’s recruitment has seen 13 players commit to the Cats for the 2019 season, which includes a mix of experienced AFLW players and competition debutants. Former Melbourne players Richelle Cranston and Mel Hickey are familiar names that will wear the blue and white hoops, while Geelong locals and VFLW captain and vice-captain Bec Goring and Renee Garing are ready to make their mark on the big stage.

According to Geelong’s state leagues operations manager and AFLW list manager Ben Waller, building an AFLW list is an exciting challenge that the Cats have prepared for.

“Our VFLW program has obviously played a major role in building the list for our inaugural season and now having early picks in this year’s draft gives us a lot of confidence that we’re going to be able to bring in some exciting young talent,” Waller said.

Waller and Geelong VFLW and AFLW coach Paul Hood recently travelled to the Gold Coast for the 2018 NAB AFL Women’s Under 18 Championships, which saw the best young talent from across Australia on display. With the Cats having the first two selections in this year’s AFLW draft, Waller said that it was exciting to see the depth of talent that was at the carnival.

“The standard of talent on display throughout the week was outstanding, including a number of players from across the Geelong region, which was really exciting from our point of view,” he said.

The AFLW draft allows players to nominate the state that they’d like to play football in and only clubs within that state are eligible to select them. But with half of the 48-player All Australian squad named after the Under 18 Championships from Vic Country and Vic Metro the Cats will certainly have plenty of talent to choose from.

A range of sporting backgrounds exists amongst players already on the inaugural AFLW list. Ex-Melbourne Vixen and NSW Swift netballer Erin Hoare and former Geelong Supercats captain Anna Teague have both enjoyed success after making the transition to football.

“We are still looking for players that might be interested in crossing over sports,” Waller said.

“Quite a few of the girls playing in the TAC Cup are players that have backgrounds in other sports, whether it be netball or basketball or soccer.

“But having said that a lot of them have now played footy from a junior age with really good coaching programs so I think that’s why we’re starting to see so much talent come through the pathway.”

There will be plenty for Cats fans to cheer for in 2019, with local talent set to shine on the national stage.

“We’ve always said from the outset that our main focus was to grow our region, and I think in our final proposal to the AFL we said that we’d aim for 70 per cent of our list to come through the Geelong pathway,” Waller said.

“Be it our VFLW program, the Falcons or the AFL Barwon competition we’re really confident that we’re going to be able to reach that number, if not exceed it.

“It really is exciting for all Geelong supporters, that they know they’ll be supporting the team that’s truly representative of our region.”

Current Geelong AFLW list: Cassie Blakeway, Maddie Boyd, Richelle Cranston, Kate Darby, Renee Garing, Rebecca Goring, Mel Hickey, Erin Hoare, Jordan Ivey, Phoebe McWilliams, Aasta O’Connor, Danielle Orr, Anna Teague.