The Geelong Cats have announced their VFL Women’s pre-season squad of 42 ahead of the team’s first official training session next week.
 
The pre-season squad includes women from the Geelong region as well as wider Victoria including Bacchus Marsh, Kew, Sunbury and Lake Wendouree.
 
The VFL Women’s coaching panel, led by senior coach Paul Hood, have taken a youthful approach to squad selection with the large majority under 25 years of age.
 
A total of 17 former Geelong Magpies players were selected as well as 10 women from various other sports.
 
Local Geelong netballer Renee Garing will line up for the Cats in 2017 after being selected in the pre-season squad. Garing’s netballing achievements include three GFL league best & fairest awards, five St Mary’s Netball best & fairests and more recently inclusion in the 2016 GFL A-Grade Team of the Year.
 
Basketballer and Geelong Supercats captain Anna Teague will also don the blue and white hoops. Teague, a Geelong local, was named in the Supercats’ top 20 players over the last 20 years.
 
Baseballer Leslie Anglin, Australian gymnastics champion Emily Ramsay, steeplechaser Isabelle Gerardi, futsal representative Carla D’Alessandro and Australian ultimate Frisbee representative Hannah Mangan have also been selected.
 
Eliza Shannon, a promising talent and member of the Geelong Falcons Youth Girls Academy, has been selected and will resume training once the Geelong Falcons season concludes. Shannon was a member of the under-16 and under-18 All-Australian football teams in 2015 and the under-18 Vic Country team in 2013 and 2015.
 
VFL Women’s coach Paul Hood said the pre-season squad selection was a tough exercise with so much talent coming forward at the inaugural Talent ID Day.
 
“The Talent ID Day was such a success, we had almost 160 women turn out so it’s been a difficult exercise cutting the squad down to just 42 but we are really pleased with the calibre of athletes we have selected.”
 
Under VFL rules the Cats have the ability to make changes to it’s pre-season squad before the 14-round home & away season begins in early May 2017.
 
Pre-season training will officially kick off next Tuesday night, November 29. The Cats’ VFL Women will utilise Simonds Stadium, Deakin University’s Elite Sports Precinct at Waurn Ponds and other various venues for training purposes.
 
Geelong Cats VFL Women’s pre-season squad:
 
Emma Allen, Leslie Anglin, Marianna Anthony, Temikka Beeston *, Abbey Bertram, Cassie Blakeway, Maddie Boyd *, Hannah Burchell *, Simone Craig, Emily Crawford, Carly D’Alessandro, Cheryl de Groot *, Lucy de Groot *, Emma Delaney, Michelle Fedele *, Renee Garing,  Isabella Gerardi, Demi Grant, Alisha Habib*, Michaela Harding, Cassandra Hynes*, Jordan Ivey, Maddison Janssen *, Millie Klingbeil, Madisen Maguire *, Hannah Mangan, Lily Mithen *, Shae-Lee Murphy-Burke, Brodie Pedretti, Emily Ramsay, Eliza Shannon, Riley Shapter *, Katrina Simmons, Jess Smith, Brooke Surgeon, Laura Taylor *, Anna Teague, Teresa Telford *, Lara Williams *, Krista Woodroffe *, Jaime Woollett *, Tayla Zammit
 
* former Geelong Magpies players